‘I can’t breathe!’ Disturbing echoes of George Floyd in Tarrant County jail death video | Opinion

“I can’t breathe!” Anthony Johnson Jr. shouted.

Now, all of us are holding our breath.

Johnson’s death in the Tarrant County jail comes at a time of national concern about police violence, and in a county already hurting because a clumsy new county judge is politically divisive at every turn.

With a family heartbroken and his deputies under suspicion, Sheriff Bill Waybourn did the right thing. He showed us the video of Johnson being pinned April 21 as he fought jailers, including one who Waybourn said kept his knee on Johnson’s back longer than training allows.

But the video didn’t tell everything. It conveniently ended before we saw how hard jailers tried or how long it took to get help for Johnson, 31, of Fort Worth.

In one telling moment, Waybourn said that the emergency response was “delayed” because jailers took Johnson to help instead of bringing medical staff to his side.

For that matter, everything about this jail cell incident was delayed.

The supervisor didn’t have a video camera and wound up using an iPhone.

The jail deputy kept Johnson pinned in a dangerous position even after he was restrained, when jailers should have helped him up to breathe. No cause of death has been determined, and the deputy’s lawyer said he didn’t violate any policy or cause Johnson’s death.

Then, deputies didn’t get Johnson the care he needed.

The kneeling deputy, identified as Detention Officer Rafael Moreno, and the supervisor on site, Lt. Joel Garcia, have been fired.

The case has not been presented to District Attorney Phil Sorrells’ office.

“We ask for your patience,” Texas Department of Public Safety regional director Jeremy Sherrod said. The Texas Rangers, part of DPS, are investigating the case.

Another delay. Sherrod did not say for how long.

Waybourn, under political pressure in an election year, seemed defensive at times as he delivered an ugly video for both law enforcement and the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office.

He described Johnson’s condition as “excited delirium” before saying doctors now know the Marine veteran suffered from schizophrenia. And he took the lectern first to give his own version, telling reporters what he wanted them to see in the video.

But Waybourn also expressed the deep shame and shock that he said the sheriff’s office feels over Johnson’s death.

For days, rumors sped through Fort Worth about a video showing a deputy pinned Johnson down as he shouted, “I can’t breathe!”

Yes, like in the 2020 death in Minneapolis of Texan George Floyd.

But Floyd died on the street after a police officer pinned him by the neck for nine minutes. Johnson died in a shorter jailhouse fight with deputies.

Johnson’s death comes after the courthouse was already filled with tension.

On April 16, Arlington Democratic County Commissioner Alisa Simmons, who is Black, was arguing with Republican County Judge Tim O’Hare of Southlake when O’Hare pointed a finger and ordered her: “I’m the one talking now, so you’ll sit there and be quiet and listen.”

O’Hare’s primary job is to preside as moderator at meetings of the five-member Commissioners Court.

The rash outburst did not calm the conflict or promote unity in a county government where urban Fort Worth and Arlington are politically dominated by three Republican commissioners who all live in the county’s far north suburbs.

Then, on April 25, District Attorney Phil Sorrells of North Richland Hills announced that his office will ask the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to reinstate a 5-year prison sentence given Rendon voter Crystal Mason, who is Black.

Mason’s 2018 illegal voting conviction and sentence over a 2016 vote were thrown out by the Second Court of Appeals. Judges said neither the ballot affidavit nor the election judge explained that it was illegal for Mason to vote because she was under federally supervised release in a tax fraud case.

Under Texas law and a 2022 court decision, voting isn’t illegal unless the voter knows it’s illegal.

A court of very conservative Republican judges upheld that law. They freed Mason outright, saying she was never told she couldn’t vote.

Yet Sorrells still wants Mason sent to prison for five years.

You can understand why it isn’t easy right now to trust Tarrant County.

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