Houston Jail Cited for State-Law Violations Twice in a Month
For the second time in less than a month, the Texas Commission on Jail Standards (TCJS) cited the Harris County Jail in Houston on January 13, 2025, this time for failing to conduct state-mandated “face to face observations” before a detainee’s in-custody death. The Commission had earlier cited the jail on December 17, 2024, for guards’ failure to search a detainee’s wheelchair during booking two months before—allowing him to bring a loaded pistol into the lockup that wasn’t found for a month.
After that incident, TCJS wrote Sheriff Ed Gonzalez and County Judge Lina Hidalgo and cited violations of state Minimum Jail Standards found during an inspection the previous day, which in turn was triggered by discovery of the gun in November 2024. A review of surveillance video revealed that it arrived a month before that with Tyrone Kennedy, 53, when guards failed to search his wheelchair as he was booked into the lockup on October 23, 2024. See: Special Inspection Report, Harris Cty. Jail, TCJS (Dec. 17, 2024).
Kennedy, who was picked up on a felony parole violation, was then charged with two more felonies for possession of a deadly weapon in a penal institution and unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon. Gonzalez instituted a policy change prohibiting detainees from bringing their own “personal mobility devices” into the jail, including wheelchairs, walkers, canes and crutches. Now prisoners and detainees must transition to a county-provided device “of equivalence at the time of confiscation” of their own device. Gonzalez also reported the incident to TCJS, whose inspectors then demanded a plan for “corrective action” that must include “some type of training for personnel regarding conducting contraband searches.” Harris County Sheriff’s Office Chief of Staff Jason Spencer filed that plan with TCJS on December 13, 2024.
The second inspection was triggered by a December 2024 detainee death—though it wasn’t clear which one, since there were three that month. Afterward, the jail was cited for violating Texas law mandating hourly in-person checks by guards on jail detainees, except those “known to be assaultive, potentially suicidal, mentally ill, or who have demonstrated bizarre behavior are confined”; they must be checked every half-hour. See: Notice of Non-Compliance, Harris Cty. Jail, TCJS (Jan. 13, 20250.
The detainee who missed those vital checks might have been Byron Burton, 62; he was found “motionless” on his cell floor on December 4, 2024, less than three weeks after being booked on a theft charge. Or it might have been Cerdarian Patrick O’Neal-Thompson, 31, who was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead on December 9, 2024, about five weeks after booking on a slew of charges, including murder. A third detainee, Anthony Thomas, 65, died on December 28, 2024, in his cell, where he had waited 220 days to face an aggravated assault charge.
Officials chalked up all three deaths to “medical emergency.” With them, the jail hit a total body count of 10 for the year (nearly one death per month). That was nonetheless fewer than the 19 deaths that occurred in 2023 and the 27 deaths in 2022, a two-decade high, as PLN reported. [See: PLN, Aug. 2023, p.1.]
Additional source: Houston Public Media
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