Lawsuit filed by parents of Anthony Johnson over son’s killing in Tarrant County Jail

Read the latest in our coverage of the death of Anthony Johnson Jr. and other issues in Tarrant County jail.

The family of Anthony Johnson Jr. has filed a lawsuit against Tarrant County, two named jailers and other unnamed jailers in connection with Johnson’s death in the Tarrant County Jail on April 21.

Daryl Washington, the civil rights attorney representing the Johnson family , filed the suit Monday in federal court in Fort Worth.

Johnson, a 31-year-old Marine veteran, died in the Tarrant County Jail during an altercation with detention officers after he was arrested amid a schizophrenic episode. The arrest on April 19 came after his family took him to a mental health hospital and he was denied admission, according to the family. The hospital told them he wasn’t yet violent toward himself or others, so he had to go home, the family said.

Johnson was in the Tarrant jail for less than 24 hours when during a contraband check he was pulled from his cell and got into a brief fight with jailers, according to partial video of the altercation. After officers pepper-sprayed Johnson and had him handcuffed and face-down on the floor, a heavyset jailer put his knee on Johnson’s back for 90 seconds, the video shows.

The Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled Johnson’s death a homicide caused by mechanical and chemical asphyxiation.

Rafael Moreno, the jailer who knelt on Johnson, and supervisor Lt. Joel Garcia have been indicted on murder charges . They were fired by Sheriff Bill Waybourn , and they are both named as defendants in the lawsuit.

The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in the Northern District of Texas, seeks damages for Johnson’s death and suffering, along with pain and suffering endured by the family.

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The lawsuit also includes John Doe jailers one through 10, indicating 10 other jailers will be named later.

The suit includes information not previously shared.

Details in the lawsuit

Family members and Washington previously talked about how WellBridge Hospital turned Johnson away after he asked his mother to take him there amid a manic state.

The lawsuit includes new details about what happened after the visit. When Johnson’s mother took him home, he went into their house and began packing a backpack. His mother, Jacqualyne Johnson, was talking with Janell Johnson, one of his sisters, when Anthony Johnson Jr. walked back out of the house.

According to the suit, he told his mother he was leaving. Jacqualyne Johnson spoke with him for a few minutes before he left.

Jacqualyne Johnson previously told the Star-Telegram she tried to convince her son to stay. She wanted to keep him in the house until she could get him admitted somewhere else, but he left anyway. It was the last time she saw him alive.

Anthony Johnson was disappointed that WellBridge Hospital would not admit him, according to the lawsuit. His family said he wanted to get help and be admitted until his mental health crisis subsided.

Jacqualyne Johnson later got a call from her son, saying he’d been arrested by Saginaw police and was initially in the city jail. The family got another call from him the next day, just after 1 p.m., telling them he’d been booked into the Tarrant County Jail.

He was charged with possession of a controlled substance, resisting arrest and tampering with evidence. Authorities previously said he was found in an intersection in Saginaw with a knife, leading someone to call 911 about a suspicious person.

Jacqualyne Johnson told her son she would help take care of it by contacting My Health My Resources , a local government service that prescribed his medication, and helping to post bond, according to the suit. She believed that his mental health crisis and the steps Anthony and his family took to try to prevent him from getting in trouble would impact the charges.

Less than 24 hours after he called, a sheriff’s deputy and chaplain knocked on the Johnson family’s door and told them he was dead.

When jailers came to search Johnson’s cell for a contraband check, the lawsuit says, he was sleep-deprived and confused. He hadn’t been given any of his medication for schizophrenia when the jailers surprised him, the court documents state.

The lawsuit says several jailers, identified as John Does, immediately started an altercation with Anthony Johnson. In the fight leading to his death, the lawsuit says, the 5-foot-4 man was helpless as he was punched, kicked, thrown to the ground and cuffed.

The suit alleges the jailers deployed pepper spray directly into Johnson’s mouth. His cause of death included chemical asphyxiation in addition to mechanical .

“Defendant Garcia did not respond to the incident with any urgency and was not urgent in carrying out his duties and that had a detrimental effect,” the lawsuit reads. “Johnson, who also had pepper spray discharged into his mouth, was allowed to experience a slow and painful death. It was obvious to the Defendant Jailers that Johnson was in respiratory/medical distress, but no medical assistance was offered to Johnson .”

The cell was not searched or cleaned before Anthony Johnson was put there, according to the suit. After the deadly altercation, jailers found contraband including a shank that could have hurt him, the family said.

The suit notes that the full autopsy makes no mention of the medication needed to treat Johnson’s schizophrenia, including antidepressants, antipsychotics or bipolar medication. There is no indication Johnson was taken to the hospital after his arrest to receive medication or treatment, according to the suit.

“Defendants failed to provide Johnson with the proper medical attention although they knew it was required,” the complaint read. “The Policymakers were aware that inmates — including Johnson — were being mistreated and neglected at the TCJ but did nothing to prevent it.”

The jailers including Garcia and Moreno ignored Johnson’s need for immediate medical attention after the fight, ignored his pleas for help and the obvious signs that he needed to be seen by medical professionals, the lawsuit states.

Randy Moore, an attorney representing Garcia in his employment case, told the Star-Telegram after he was fired that Garcia was not in command of the jailers when the fight happened and that he tried to get medical care to Johnson afterward. Attorneys for Moreno have not responded to multiple requests for comment since he was fired.

Announcing the indictments of Moreno and Garcia last month, Waybourn said, “The wheels of justice continue to turn in this case. I said from the beginning that we hold accountable anyone responsible for Mr. Johnson’s death and we are doing that.”

In May, U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey, a Fort Worth Democrat, joined Tarrant County Commissioner Alisa Simmons in asking the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate deaths at the Tarrant County Jail . Since 2017, more than 60 inmates have died at the jail or soon after experiencing a health crisis there, Veasey wrote in his May 23 letter.

Sheriff’s Office data show that there were 63 inmate deaths between 2017 and April of this year, 11 of which were due to COVID and 32 from other natural causes. Four were attributed to fentanyl-related overdoses, three were accidental, six were suicides and one was a homicide. One death was caused by gunshot wounds from a shootout with U.S. marshals, the Sheriff’s Office said.