KXAN: Advocates, family members denounce jail deaths at Texas Capitol hearing
February 3, 2024
Advocates and family members of people who have experienced mental illness in custody met in February 2024 at a Texas Commission on Jail Standards hearing to speak publicly and raise…
Advocates and family members of people who have experienced mental illness in custody met in February 2024 at a Texas Commission on Jail Standards hearing to speak publicly and raise awareness of jail deaths and a state hospital system backlog that has left thousands of mentally ill people waiting for treatment for months, or years, in jail.
Diana Claitor, former director of the Texas Jail Project, spoke on behalf two men – Julian Torres, who died May 5, 2023, at the age of 40 in the El Paso County Jail and Jonathan Taylor Ngumbi, 32, who died in Kaufman County Jail on Nov. 2, 2023.
“I think it is astounding and horrifying I am standing here with these two families again; except this time, they don’t have their sons. Their sons are gone.”
Diana Claitor
Claitor and her organization – including current executive director Krishnaveni Gundu – had assisted both men and their families for years as they navigated the criminal justice system with mental illness, she said.
“More than half the people who died in jail custody in 2022 had been identified as mentally ill at least once since the 1980s.”
