Tarrant County Jail in-custody death went unreported for 30 days to attorney general's office

FORT WORTH, Texas - North Texas leaders are demanding answers after an in-custody death at the Tarrant County jail went unreported for more than 30 days, the deadline given to report to the attorney general's office.

It's just the latest mishap as the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office is facing scrutiny for the dozens of in-custody deaths that have occurred since he took office in 2017.

What we know:

36-year-old Charles Stephen Johnson died while in custody on Feb. 8.

The sheriff’s department says Johnson died at John Peter Smith Hospital following complications from an attempted suicide.

 The sheriff's office says although the death was immediately reported to the Texas Commission on Jail Standards, a separate reporting of it to the state attorney general’s office within 30 days did not happen, violating state law.

Krish Gundu is cofounder of the advocacy group, Texas Jail Project. It reached out to the sheriff’s office about the missed deadline.

"The law is very clear on reporting timelines. So when it doesn’t happen, that is cause for concern," he said. "If you have data, you can talk about what needs to change in the future in depth that are preventable. But another piece of that, I will say this, is often the only piece of information that families and loved ones have when they lose a loved one in custody."

The Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office filed the death with the AG on March 11, one day after receiving the notification from the Texas Jail Project.

What they're saying:

The sheriff’s office has since said the omission was a clerical error that happened when a supervisor attempted to report Johnson’s and another inmate, Kimberly Phillips’ death.

In a statement, the sheriff’s office said, "The report for inmate Phillips was successfully submitted, however, the report for inmate Johnson was not. The supervisor was not aware that only one report was successfully submitted."

The other side:

The incident has sparked the concern of Tarrant County Commissioner Alisa Simmons, who has been vocal about the need for more transparency with what some call a disturbing number of inmate deaths in Tarrant County.

"I knew about the death," she said. "I did not know it had not been reported to the state properly."

Simmons would like the commissioner’s court to formally address this recent missed reporting deadline of an inmate death.

"I will be asking the sheriff to brief us at our next full commissioners court meeting and give us a briefing to tell us what happened so we can understand what happened," she said. "It may very well have been a clerical error, and how do we prevent this from happening again."

By the numbers:

Since 2017, when Sheriff Bill Waybourn took office, there have been nearly 70 in-custody deaths, including that of Anthony Johnson Jr., a case that has resulted in the criminal indictment of several jail staff and prompted significant public outcry.