Why Inmates Continue To Die Inside Harris County Jail

Hey everyone, just four months ago, we did an episode on why so many inmates were dying inside Harris County jail, and unfortunately, more have died since then. But now the families of these inmates are fighting back. Will we finally see changes or is this a sad new norm for Harris County jail? Houston Public Media's Lucio Vasquez joins me to answer those questions and more. It's Monday, September 11th, 2023. I'm Raheel Rumsonli, and here's what Houston's talking about. Lucio, welcome to CityCast Houston. How are you? I'm doing well. Hey, let's jump into this because it seems like every week Harris County jail has been in that news. There's been headlines, non-stop. Can you update us on the latest and what's going on? Yeah, you know, it's funny to say that it's always in the news. Someone who's been covering it, it feels almost like it's an octopus with a lot of tentacles, right? So it's kind of hard to just broadly say what's going on, but I guess I'll try. A majority of these deaths, at least this year, have been considered natural causes. But when you look at the actual death reports, anything involved, evolving, medical illness is considered natural causes. So there's a lot of community advocates and family members who are looking at the death of their family members and loved ones who are being considered natural cause deaths when in reality, it may be because they have a lack of medical care or a lack of staff to care for the people held inside the jail itself. So right now, the Harris County jail has been found non-compliant with the Texas Commission on Jail Standards there. They're safety standards for jails in the state. The Harris County Jail has been found non-compliant on four separate occasions throughout the last year for understaffing a lack of medical care. So again, there's a lot of issues that kind of compound in the jail itself right now. So from your reporting, can you give us a look at what the situation is like for an inmate that goes to Harris County jail and maybe even like a corrections officer, right? Like what is it like in there right now? Yeah, I think it's depending on if you are a person who's jailed inside of the facility or even a person working in it as a detention officer or one of the medical staff, I think the situation is just dire across the board, at least from what I've been told, from like jail reform advocates and the sheriff's office who actually runs the facility itself. The underlying issue is overcrowding. Essentially, there are too many people in the jail. More people are going in than leaving. So if you enter the jail itself, you're most likely being held for more of a violent crime or a felony. Once you enter the jail itself, from what I've been told, there's a lack of medical care. There is a culture of abuse that's seemingly being perpetuated by detention officers. Again, this is all alleged. I've not stepped foot in the jail myself, but this is based on what firsthand accounts of people who have been in there, right? And as a detention officer as well, you're dealing with understaffing and you're dealing with a ratio of incarcerated person to detention officer that's rather uncomfortable. And so, coupling with the alleged culture of abuse, there's also detention officers who can't feasibly actually care for the people who are held inside the jail because there aren't enough detention officers to feasibly do so. So I spoke with the executive director of the commission just recently. And basically, the county is under escalated enforcement moving forward. I'm not exactly sure what all that entails, but essentially, they're subject to, I believe, more inspections. And if the jail continues to not remedy the situation, they could be subject to state remediation. Wow. Before we get the solutions, I want to focus on those inmates who passed away not only this year, but the 27 last year. And as you mentioned, we're not even talking about those who went to the hospital or were injured. What are their families doing right now to get answers? Yeah. I mean, I would assume it's very difficult to be in the situation, right? Because well, I'll tell you a short story. I think to represent why this would be difficult, but I spoke with a woman named Deborah Smith, whose daughter Kristen had passed away while in custody in May of 2022. Up until I believe late November, maybe mid November, her mother did not know how her daughter passed away. She still had no answers. And this again goes back to the tentacles, the octopus that I was mentioning, right? There's overcrowding in the jail, but we can also look at the court backlog that's been piling up since Hurricane Harvey here in Harris County. So because of the court backlog, cases are continuing to to stall out and linger for far longer in Harris County than any other municipality in Texas. So we have people staying in the Harris County jail for on average 200 days versus the average of 60 days across the state. Wow. So because of these delays, there's also delays in evidence processing and delays in autopsies. So this links back to Kristen, who I spoke with her mother. She had no idea what had happened to her daughter. She could only assume that it was something to do with her diabetes, but she again, she had no idea up until mid to late November when it was confirmed that it was complications due to her diabetes. Of course, the death report stated natural causes, but based on what we've heard from the sheriff's office saying that they're understaffed and they have an inability to properly care for the people in the jail and the allegations set forth from jail reform advocates with allegations of lack of medical care, I think it's safe to infer that there was a lack of medical care and she didn't receive her insulin and medication and that may have contributed to her death. And this is just one story, right? There's a lot of family members who are just pining for answers and not even family members of those who specifically died, but there's a man who was put into a coma after an altercation with detention officers. I remember they had a pre-few press conferences over the last few months. There was a the family member of a teenager who was mentally disabled and he was killed by another inmate and there are still no answers as to what even happened. So they've been demanding video evidence, something just to give answers. Giaf Shoppefile.de Schreigstrich Podcast 23 Now are these family members suing Harris County jail right now? Are there lawsuits pending anything like that? Yeah, so there there have been a couple of lawsuits throughout the last year or two, but the main one, the the big lawsuit recently was a federal lawsuit filed on behalf of the families of nine people who died, along with I believe 13 formerly incarcerated people who spent time in Harris County jail, a place of torment and punishment. That's what the lawsuit says exactly. And again, with all these other tentacles of allegations of abuse and allegations of overcrowding, it's interesting to see the lawsuit take the federal stage down. And so now we're just kind of waiting to see the next the next steps. So where does that lawsuit stand today? Is it I mean, is it going to move forward? Yeah, I mean, as of right now, I've been talking with family members, not necessarily about the lawsuit itself, but from what I can tell, they're definitely feeling a little more hopeful. They're represented by Benjamin Crump, he represented the family of George Floyd after he was killed. And so very high profile case, very high profile attorney on their side as well. And so as of right now, nothing, no, no huge developments, as of right now, it's only been I think about a month or so since it was filed. But definitely something to keep an eye on for sure. Now, it's clear that some sort of intervention needs to take place. Who do we go to? Who are the people or a person in charge? Is it a federal thing? Who can help fix this? Yeah, that's a great question. And I think the answer change is depending on who you ask, you know, I've spoken with the sheriff's office and their chief of staff and the sheriff himself will say that the jail is overcrowded and there are certain pieces of legislation that are contributing to that. But the main issue is the overcrowding and understaffing. So they say that they're understaffed because the starting pay is too low, they're not competitive with other jails and surrounding counties. So that's the sheriff's office side. You go to the DA's office side and they are essentially trying to build more courts and bolster their budget and to hire more prosecutors to get more of these of these cases through because again, we're we're gosh, we're probably still over 100,000 pending cases here in Harris County. And what? I think this might be an estimation. I think the last time I checked was about 35,000 of those was criminal. Wow. Yeah. And so there's a lot of people just sitting in the jail waiting to potentially be found innocent, but they're still waiting in the jail and potentially in danger because of that. Oh, man, that is so sad to hear now. I don't know if you can answer this or not, but we had a federal surplus in the budget coming into this year, right? Why did we not allocate some of those funds to the DA's office to Sheriff Ed Gonzalez as he's been requesting more money to the commissioner's court for next year's budget? Why wasn't this taking care of last year? You know, that's a great question. And honestly, I'm not even totally sure if I can give you a good answer just because I know that I've been focusing on the local level here, but I will say in terms of the a national outlook, but the FBI is actually looking into two specific deaths at the jail itself. So there is a semblance of federal intervention. I just can't speak to how the budget plays into it. Yeah, it's a sad situation and something that needs to get fixed ASAP. And you know, I thought last year coming off that record 27 deaths. I thought something would be done, but you know, we are a little bit behind on the pace. We're not going to get that 27, hopefully, right? So I hope something gets done over here. Any last thoughts on what's been going on that we might have missed? Yeah, I think, and I think, you know, I'll tread carefully because of course, I don't want to give my opinion as a journalist, but I think it is important to report on this topic because I've gotten feedback from some of my stories that basically amounts to, well, these people are in jail. Why should I care? Right? Yeah. And I think it's important to remember that, you know, 27 people, while statistically, I guess, if you think, even if you want to look on like a very broad scale, isn't a lot of people, it's still 27 people who passed away, who died. And there are family members who still don't have answers, didn't get answers, right? And it's also important to remember that these are people who are in jail, who are accused of a crime, right? They haven't been convicted yet. Jacoby Pillow, for example, he's one of the two people who died in the jail whose death is being investigated by the FBI. He was arrested for trespassing. And he was the first person to die in the jail this year, at least, reportedly. And he, he was supposed to be released. The trespassing is a misdemeanor. So like I mentioned earlier, misdemeanors, they do not spend time in the jail more than 48 hours as their case is being, you know, pushed forward through the courts. But during his time, he allegedly got into an altercation with detention officers and he was found unresponsive in his cell shortly after. And then he, I believe, died in a hospital. So again, trespassing and accused of trespassing. He wasn't convicted for anything. So I guess just my overall point is, I think it's important to humanize this statistic, right? We do that a lot with, say, the COVID-19 pandemic. We have an insurmountable amount of people who have passed away due to this illness, right? It's kind of easy to just look at the number and kind of like get the sensitized, right? But we have at least 27 people last year. Unfortunately, I do believe that number will increase by the end of the year. Lisa, thank you so much for joining us and for reporting on this. Thank you again. And it's such an important story. And hopefully we don't have to report on more deaths, but, you know, continued great work because you are bringing light to this really sad situation. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. That was Lucio Vasquez. You can hear his work on Houston Public Media News 88.7 FM. That will do it for today. Thank you for listening. And I hope you learned something new.