KERA News: State says Tarrant County violated law requiring independent jail death investigations

The Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office has listed the Fort Worth Police Department as an independent investigator of jail deaths since at least 2021. But the police never investigated those deaths, a spokesperson confirmed to the Fort Worth Report and KERA.

Instead, police reviewed only the internal investigation conducted by the sheriff’s office itself — in apparent violation of state law, according to the state’s jail oversight body, the Texas Commission on Jail Standards.

The Sandra Bland Act, signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott in 2017, requires an independent law enforcement agency to investigate every in-custody death. A sheriff’s office can conduct its own investigation, too, but it doesn’t replace an independent investigation.

The state agency has received the Fort Worth police reviews of each death, but commission staff missed the fact they weren’t complete investigations, Wood said. Jail death reports submitted to the Texas Attorney General’s Office show, in some cases, the sheriff’s office said the police would investigate the deaths. In other cases, it said the police would review the death.

Dean Malone has noticed the same issue. He’s an attorney who often represents families of people who have died in Texas jails, including some cases in Tarrant County.

The Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office has a responsibility to go back and make sure each death gets a real third-party investigation, said Krish Gundu, co-founder of watchdog group the Texas Jail Project.

“You’re not supposed to be investigating yourself,” she said.

Malone called the lack of independent investigation “appalling.” Going back and investigating the deaths now would not be easy, he said.

“You just can’t wait several years to do it. The investigation will not be as it would be when it’s fresh,” he said.

The sheriff’s office should also notify families of people who died in custody of the failure to investigate, Gundu added.

“It’s a travesty of justice. It’s an utter travesty,” she said.