Silence from Tarrant sheriff, Texas Rangers nearing a month after Anthony Johnson’s death

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

It’s been 23 days since Anthony Johnson Jr. died in the custody of the Tarrant County Jail. His family and their attorney said they haven’t heard anything from the Texas Rangers, who are investigating his death.

The death of Johnson, a 31-year-old Tarrant County resident, a Marine veteran and briefly an inmate at the Tarrant County Jail, is being investigated by the state’s top law enforcement branch: the Texas Rangers. A spokesperson for the agency told the Star-Telegram on Monday that no new updates were available.

On Sunday, Jacqualyne Johnson spent her first Mother’s Day without her son in three decades. The family’s attorney, Daryl Washington, told the Star-Telegram this year’s holiday was exceptionally painful.

“You don’t know whether to tell a grieving mother, ‘Happy Mother’s Day’ or ‘I’m praying for you,’” Washington said. “What is happy about this Mother’s Day for her?”

He added that the holiday made things extra difficult for the family.

“They’re hurting because they don’t have that opportunity to grieve,” Washington said. “They’re having to fight, and with Mother’s Day that was extra tough.”

Johnson was arrested on April 19 amid a schizophrenic episode. His family told the Star-Telegram they tried to take him to a mental health hospital but were told he wasn’t violent enough to admit. They were turned away.

The family said they heard from Johnson when he called them from the jail on April 20. On the morning of April 21, two Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office deputies and a chaplain knocked on their door and told them he was dead.

The family wasn’t told how he died, and even when county commissioners were briefed in response to calls for information, they didn’t hear any specifics beyond the use of pepper spray during what the sheriff’s office called an altercation between Johnson and detention officers. Johnson’s family was at the commissioners’ meeting last week, even though Tarrant County Sheriff Bill Waybourn declined requests to brief his fellow elected officials.

Johnson’s mother, Jacqualyne, and his sisters Janell and Chanell all spoke at the meeting, addressing County Judge Tim O’Hare and some county commissioners by name. Waybourn’s contribution was to send over news releases that were printed out and read by County Administrator Chandler Merritt. Those news releases, sent to media after the April deaths of Anthony Johnson and an unrelated inmate named Roderick Johnson, had been public for weeks before they were read, with the most recent being disseminated two weeks prior.

Washington, the family’s attorney, said it shouldn’t be that way. He has said bruising on Johnson’s body indicates force was used but the sheriff’s office has withheld those details.

“There’s a video and witnesses,” Washington said. “If an ordinary person did this, they would be arrested right away.”

Johnson’s family said that releasing the video would help them process his death and take steps in healing, and transparency could lessen public outrage. Washington and others, like Democratic Commissioner Alisa Simmons, have also called for the video to be released.

The Star-Telegram has requested videos depicting what happened to Johnson in the jail. The Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office has, through the district attorney, sent those requests to the Texas Attorney General’s Office in hopes of being allowed to withhold the video.

The letter to the attorney general’s office cites an open investigation and says releasing the video could interfere with that investigation.

“You Judge [Tim O’Hare], you Mr. Gary Fickes and Manny Ramirez, you killed my son,” Jacqualyne Johnson said at the commissioners meeting. “And how I can say that is this has been festering in the county for years and you’ve done nothing about it.”

“You can’t see my pain right now, but I can make sure y’all turn colors and see pain,” Janell said.

“He was murdered,” Chanell said.

Since that meeting, Republican County Commissioner Manny Ramirez has called for transparency and for the sheriff’s office to implement a media policy. He stopped short of calling for the video’s release, but did say he wants changes in policies that would require information to be made available at specific periods in sheriff’s office investigations.

Simmons, in addition to asking Waybourn to provide information in the meeting, made calls for the video to be shown to commissioners in closed session, for a Department of Justice probe into the jail and at the meeting she grilled an empty lectern — where she said Waybourn should have been standing to brief her and her colleagues.

Waybourn’s absence, and his silence, have been insulting to the family, they said. Jacqualyne said she wants answers so she doesn’t go to bed each night not knowing what happened to her son.

O’Hare has not responded to the Star-Telegram’s request for comment since the meeting.

Republican County Commissioner Gary Fickes has not spoken out on the issue, nor has Democrat Roy Brooks, who wasn’t in attendance for the commissioner’s meeting. Neither Fickes nor Brooks are running for reelection, but Waybourn is.

Washington worries the video of Johnson’s death could be kept under wraps for a prolonged time during an election year.

But the silence from law enforcement isn’t new, and it isn’t something seen only in election years, Washington said. He said police will release video any time it benefits them. If body-camera footage shows an officer was justified in the use of deadly force, they’ll use it no matter the stage of the investigation, he said.

The same thing seems to happen when police want to promote work they’ve done, no matter whether an investigation is ongoing, Washington said. He suggested authorities are withholding the video because it does the opposite and would show the sheriff’s office in a bad light.

And in this case, Johnson expects the video to be disturbing. He predicts people will be enraged, and that the longer it takes the sheriff’s office to release the video and take other actions like indictments and arrests the worse it will be.