Tarrant County inmate found dead in jail cell Thursday morning. Cause not yet known

A Tarrant County Jail inmate was found dead early Thursday morning following an apparent medical emergency, the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.

At around 5:35 a.m. Thursday, Tarrant County detention officers found the inmate unresponsive in his cell after he hadn’t shown up for breakfast, the release says.

Medical personnel from John Peter Smith Hospital immediately responded to the jail and began life-saving measures, according to the release. MedStar and the Fort Worth Fire Department also responded and the inmate was pronounced dead.

The inmate, identified by the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office as 42-year-old Roderick Johnson of Fort Worth, had been in custody since Dec. 4. He was arrested by Fort Worth police on charges of unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon and deadly conduct.

Rulings on the manner and cause of his death are pending an autopsy.

At least seven agencies review and investigate all in-custody deaths, according to the sheriff’s office. These include Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office jail staff, the TCSO Criminal Investigations Division, the Texas Commission on Jail Standards, an outside law enforcement agency, JPS medical staff, the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office and the Texas Attorney General’s Office.

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This marks the fourth in-custody death this year at the Tarrant County Jail.