‘How dare you take that oath?’ Family calls out Tarrant jail medical staff in inmate’s death

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

The family of a man who died in the Tarrant County jail in April called out the medical staff who attended to him at a press conference May 21 where they described the unreleased video of his death.

The mother and two sisters of Anthony Johnson Jr., who died on April 21 after an altercation with jailers, said they hold staff from the JPS Health Network partly responsible for his death after watching footage not released to the public.

“JPS owns some accountability here as well as those nurses,” said his mother Jacqualyne Johnson. “In my opinion, they’re dangerous, and they need to lose their license and go find another job. They don’t need to be nurses.”

The JPS Health Network county hospital has approximately 240 full time employees providing medical care in the county jail, according to a JPS spokesperson.

“I’m so disappointed in JPS health care staff, all the nurses, you’re not sleeping — if you see this, you’re not sleeping tonight, because now I’ve seen you,” said Johnson’s sister Janell Johnson, who added that she has experience as a health care worker. “How dare you take that oath? And you treated my brother the way you did?”

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Video released last week by Tarrant County Sheriff Bill Waybourn shows a detention officer put his weight on Anthony Johnson Jr. with his knee on the handcuffed inmate’s back for about 90 seconds before Johnson became unresponsive and later was pronounced dead.

Seconds after the officer knelt on him, Johnson can be heard on the video saying he can’t breathe. The investigation is ongoing and no charges have been announced.

Johnson, 31, was arrested while experiencing a mental health crisis by Saginaw police two days before his death. Johnson suffered from schizophrenia.

Jacqualyne Johnson told the Star-Telegram following the May 21 press conference that the unreleased footage shows a lapse of up to eight minutes between the time that jailers found him to be unresponsive and the moment medical staff began to give him resuscitation measures.

She saw the medical workers “smack him and try to rub his chest to make sure he wasn’t faking. He was lifeless, like a rag doll. I can’t express it any other way,” she said. “Even the correctional officers should have turned him over to give him CPR when they realized he was not responding. They did nothing.”

A JPS spokesperson initially told the Star-Telegram on May 17, “Although we do remove individuals from the schedule while we conduct a thorough review of these incidents, there has been no determination that disciplinary action is warranted in connection with Mr. Johnson’s care.”

After follow up questioning, the health network said that JPS representatives had not seen the footage to which the family was referring.

“To date, JPS has not had access to view any of the video footage beyond what has been made public by the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office,” the spokesperson said in an email exchange. “Therefore, we cannot comment on what the footage depicts, nor can we make any further determination with regard to disciplinary action of staff.”

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The Johnson family’s attorney, Daryl Washington, extended responsibility to all the officers who were present but did not react when Johnson said “I can’t breathe” as jailer Rafael Moreno put his knee and weight on his back.

“All the jailers who were there when Anthony said that I can’t breathe, those individuals who did not do anything, they should be held accountable as well,” he said.

Moreno and commanding officer Lt. Joel Garcia were fired just before the sheriff’s office released the edited footage, but were reinstated and placed on administrative leave on Thursday.

In Reality Check stories, Star-Telegram journalists dig deeper into questions over facts, consequences and accountability. Read more. Story idea? RealityCheck@star-telegram.com.