What can video tell of Tarrant County inmate’s death? Use of force experts weigh in

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

Tarrant County Sheriff Bill Waybourn presented security and cell phone footage of the in-custody death of Anthony Johnson Jr. at a press conference Thursday afternoon.

The video released by the sheriff’s office showed jailer Rafael Moreno placing a knee and body weight on Johnson’s back for a minute and a half and multiple officers ignoring Johnson saying he could not breathe. Moreno and Lt. Joel Garcia, the commanding officer who recorded the cell phone footage, have since been fired for their roles in his death.

Waybourn explained that Moreno was fired for violating policy by placing his knee on Johnson’s back after he was already in handcuffs and that Garcia was fired for his role as commanding officer at the time.

“It’s okay to put a knee in the back until you get them restrained, then what you do after that is immediately put them in the recovery position — immediately — and that didn’t happen,” Waybourn said. “They should have got him up and got his legs forward and controlled. He was still kicking on the ground, the officer said he was still kicking him, so he was still going. But you get him up getting off the chest. And that’s what he should have done. So once he’s restrained, the knee should have never went on the back.”

Police use of force expert Tim Dimoff told the Star-Telegram that the knee to the back is a legitimate tactic to subdue a subject, and that it was appropriate for Moreno to use it on Johnson, but that he appears to have used it excessively in this situation.

Dimoff is a former narcotics and SWAT officer who does consulting work for law enforcement agencies and other high-risk workplaces.

Dimoff said the video aligns with Waybourn’s statement that that Moreno “grabbed hold of the rail, he was on his toes, so that he tried not to put all of his weight on it,” but added that Moreno and other officers should have responded when he said he could not breathe.

“That’s all proper with the level of resistance that the subject displayed, it’s just that once you start to get control of the subject, the officers have a duty of care to check on the subject, to make sure he can breathe, make sure there’s not any other serious injuries, and if there is, to get immediate first aid to that subject,” he said.

Chesa Boudin, executive director of the Criminal Law and Justice Center at UC Berkeley School of Law, said the video shows Moreno did not need to use the tactic, as Johnson was already restrained when he arrived.

“This is a horrific thing to watch,” he said. “The size and weight of the deputy responsible is a significant factor, as is the fact that the decedent is already on the ground and in cuffs by the time he arrives. Often in these situations officers argue heat of the moment mistakes but this deputy arrived after the situation was already totally under control.”

Boudin told the Star-Telegram that he filed an “unprecedented” number of charges against police officers during his time as San Francisco’s district attorney. He was removed from the position during a 2022 recall amid backlash to his progressive policies.

He agreed that officers should have responded when Johnson said he was unable to breathe.

“The decedent immediately says he cannot breathe which is ignored and then the life is snuffed out of him,” he said. “Any prosecutor committed to equal enforcement of the law would file criminal charges here.”

The video evidence is not that cut and dried for Von Kliem, CEO of Force Science, a research, training and consulting firm that focuses on police use of force. A former police officer and jailer himself, Kliem said that responsibility in the case of Johnson’s death will have to come down to other factors, such as what the medical examiner’s report finds as the official cause of death.

The security camera footage will have to be corrected for its low frame rate and distorted lens, he said, making an “analysis of the fight itself almost worthless.”

“The camera isn’t going to tell you how much pressure was applied to the suspect,” he said.

Krishnaveni Gundi, co-founder and executive director of Texas Jail Project, did not see room for the kind of nuance Kliem described when she watched the video.

“It was extremely distressing to see the video released by the Sheriff’s office in Mr. Johnson’s death,” she wrote in an email exchange. “It’s nothing short of murder.”

Gundi is a former environmental activist who has advocated for jail reform for nearly two decades. The video shows that jailers did not take the proper steps to interact with an inmate they knew had a history of serious mental illness, she said. Johnson told his arresting officers that he suffered from schizophrenia.

“The jailers should have used de-escalation, non-confrontational containment techniques instead of ramping up force against him. There was absolutely no attempt made to de-escalate,” she said. “All we saw was a brute illustration of the culture of ‘overpower and subdue,’ a mentality which is so typical of law enforcement.”

Waybourn told reporters at Thursday’s press conference that the video had been cut off at the point where Johnson appeared to be non-responsive.

The former members of law enforcement Dimoff and Kliem said this is standard practice meant to protect the families, while Boudin, from Berkeley, said this is “highly variable depending on jurisdiction.”

Jail reform advocates and Tarrant County Commissioner Alisa Simmons on Friday demanded the sheriff’s department to release the full video at a press conference where activists called for Waybourn’s resignation.