Tarrant County Sheriff reinstates and suspends jail staff released after death in custody

Two Tarrant County jail employees were reinstated Thursday with their salaries retained after being fired for their roles in the incarceration death of 31-year-old Anthony Johnson Jr., an attorney said.

Rafael Moreno and Moreno’s supervisor, Lt. Joel Garcia, were most recently fired for their conduct on April 21, Tarrant County Sheriff Bill Waybourn said last week. In a cellphone video shared by the sheriff’s office, Moreno could be seen kneeling on Johnson’s back while about a half-dozen jail guards tried to restrain him.

Randall Moore, an attorney representing the lieutenant, confirmed that Garcia was reinstated and said civil service rules must be followed when disciplining an employee. He does not represent Moreno, but said The Dallas Morning News he had understood that the dismissals of both prison guards had been reversed.

The sheriff’s office did not respond to calls seeking comment Thursday.

Jane Bishkin, an attorney with the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas who had previously addressed Moreno’s dismissal, also did not respond to a text message or phone call seeking comment on Thursday.

In the videos, Moreno can be seen kneeling on Johnson for about 90 seconds. After Moreno shifts his weight onto Johnson, Johnson can be heard saying he can’t breathe.

Johnson was handcuffed after prison officers attempted to restrain him for nearly three minutes. Johnson was unresponsive after the struggle. The former Marine was later pronounced dead.

The sheriff’s office initially stated that the death was the result of a “medical emergency” following an altercation between prison guards and Johnson during a “routine cell check.”

Garcia, the supervisor, recorded the encounter. Waybourn said Garcia was fired for failing to respond appropriately to the “urgency of the situation” and making mistakes while providing medical care to Johnson. Moreno was fired for not using his knee to restrain Johnson when he was already handcuffed, Waybourn said.

“I just find it ironic that they fired (Garcia) because he violated rules that they never set, but didn’t follow the rules themselves,” Moore said.

Daryl Washington, an attorney representing Johnson’s family, also raised concerns about why proper procedures were not followed, pointing out that the firings came a month after Johnson’s death. He said that given what the family saw on a 14-minute video that is not publicly available, they still believe both men, as well as other employees involved in the death, should be fired.

“This is not the kind of news the family wanted to hear on the eve of Anthony’s funeral,” Washington said. “To now have to ask questions about whether proper procedures were followed in the release of these prison guards is simply something they did not want to talk about or deal with today.”

Washington and Moore each called on Waybourn to release the longer recording of the events of April 21.