Video shows Tarrant County jailer knelt on man’s back before in-custody death (2024)

A Tarrant County jailer and his supervisor were fired this week in response to the “traumatic” in-custody death of a 31-year-man last month, Sheriff Bill Waybourn said during a news conference Thursday.

Videos played during the conference show former jailer Rafael Moreno kneeling on Anthony Johnson Jr. for about 90 seconds April 21. Johnson was placed in handcuffs after nearly 10 jailers struggled for almost three minutes to restrain him. After Moreno shifted his weight onto him, Johnson can be heard on the video saying he can’t breathe.

Following the fight between jailers and Johnson, Johnson was unresponsive. He was later pronounced dead.

The sheriff’s office previously said the death was the result of a “medical emergency.”

Lt. Joel Garcia, who worked at the jail for 24 years, was the supervisor for Moreno. He was fired because he did not properly respond to the “urgency of the situation” and made missteps in seeking medical attention for Johnson, Waybourn said.

Moreno was fired because he should not have used his knee to pin Johnson once he was already handcuffed, Waybourn said.

The videos, shown publicly for the first time, are informing the ongoing criminal investigation into the death by the Texas Rangers, the investigative arm of the Department of Public Safety.

Whether the jailers will face charges as part of the investigation remains to be seen. An autopsy for Johnson was pending Thursday afternoon, according to online Tarrant County medical examiner records.

The decision to fire Moreno and his supervisor, Lt. Joel Garcia, was made once the Texas Rangers completed interviews as part of the death investigation, Waybourn said. Attorneys representing the jailers said their clients followed procedures and the decision to terminate them, which they said they plan to appeal, was ill-conceived.

Daryl Washington, an attorney representing Johnson’s family, called for accountability by way of arrests and criminal prosecution for the jailers.

“We want to see arrest warrants going out. We want to see people arrested,” Washington said in an interview after the conference. “This death is egregious.”

Johnson had been in jail after an arrest by officers in Saginaw, where he was accused of “wielding a knife at a driver” while standing in the roadway, the sheriff’s office has said. He was facing multiple charges, including possession of a controlled substance and evading arrest/detention.

Johnson had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, Waybourn said.

The videos, which span over 5 minutes, were captured by a surveillance camera overseeing the cell block where the fight took place and Garcia, who took a video recording of the fight with a cellphone. It’s policy for jail staff to record fights with inmates, Waybourn said, explaining that Garcia used a cellphone because a GoPro camera jailers typically use was not working.

Officials with the Tarrant County district attorney’s office showed videos, including the cellblock surveillance footage, to Johnson’s family ahead of the press conference, the sheriff said.

The videos show the fight took place on a second-floor walkway lined by holding cells and a guardrail. The jailers involved in the fight described Johnson as having “superhuman strength” and little reaction to one jailer’s use of oleoresin capsicum spray, or pepper spray, to help restrain him, Waybourn said.

“It was a very dangerous situation,” Waybourn said. “He was pepper-sprayed because nothing else was working, but it seemed to have no effect.”

Randall Moore, an attorney representing Garcia, said his client followed the jail’s procedures and questioned Waybourn’s description and characterization of his actions during the encounter. Garcia did not delay in getting medical assistance for Johnson “as soon as he saw there was a problem,” Moore said in an interview.

Jane Bishkin, an attorney with the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas, told WFAA-TV (Channel 8) that Moreno’s termination letter did not list a reason for the firing. Waybourn acted prematurely and should have waited for the final medical examiner’s report before the decision to fire Moreno, she told the station.

“We believe the sheriff’s actions are a response to the heightened public interest in this case,” she told the station.

CORRECTION, 8:30 p.m., May 23, 2024: An earlier version of this story misspelled the name of attorney Randall Moore.