Eight individuals have died in custody on the Bexar County Jail to this point this yr — double the quantity reported by this time in 2024, when 13 individuals died in complete — regardless of reforms meant to make the jail safer.
Seven of the deaths have been reported to this point to the Texas Legal professional Common’s Custodial Dying Report database, although filings may be delayed. The eighth jail demise was reported by KSAT on July 15.
The rising demise toll comes simply months after the jail regained compliance with the Texas Fee on Jail Requirements, following a November quotation that required procedural adjustments in inmate holding areas and drugs distribution.
That very same month, the sheriff’s workplace entered the ultimate section of “Operation Lifeguard,” a four-part plan launched to curb in-custody deaths by means of expanded medical screening, cell monitoring expertise and workers coaching.
However with this yr’s demise rely already double what it was at this level in 2024, the influence of these reforms stays unclear.
Of the eight deaths, three have been dominated suicides and two have been tied to issues from substance withdrawal signs, in response to public data and media stories.
Two others have been the results of assaults in custody — together with the demise of Francisco Bazan, during which a former Bexar County Sheriff’s Workplace deputy, Clemente Lopez, was charged with homicide and fascinating in organized prison exercise. Lopez is accused of opening a cell door and permitting different inmates to hold out a violent assault on Bazan.
The deaths underscore the complexity of challenges nonetheless going through the jail, whilst new insurance policies roll out.
Some reforms below Operation Lifeguard — like CPR and suicide prevention coaching — have turn out to be commonplace follow, Sheriff Javier Salazar advised the Report in an interview on Thursday. Others stay stalled or solely partially applied, usually because of staffing shortages or authorized boundaries.
“There are particular issues that haven’t but been absolutely applied,” Salazar stated. “We’ve despatched some [deputies] by means of EMT coaching. They’ve the coaching behind them, however we are able to’t begin utilizing them in that capability but — the district lawyer’s workplace has but to approve that.”
Different reforms have expanded. Radar-based coronary heart fee displays, initially put in in 14 infirmary cells, at the moment are being utilized in 100 cells throughout the jail.
“We’re nonetheless the one main county jail within the state to be using the expertise. We’re huge proponents of it,” Salazar stated. “We really haven’t had a demise in these areas the place the radar expertise is being employed.”
The system presently solely works in single-occupancy cells, he stated, although upgrades permitting for a number of occupants are in improvement.
Salazar stated staffing shortages and inmate overcrowding proceed to make prevention troublesome — even with reforms underway.
“It’s just a little little bit of all the things. There’s all the time a staffing perspective to it. There’s drug interactions or drug withdrawal points to it. We’re overcrowded,” he stated. “I’ve been an enormous proponent of, if someone doesn’t completely must be on this jail, if there’s some place else they must be, then we have to have them there.”
In October, Salazar issued a directive stating that people experiencing withdrawal, insulin dependency or different medical issues can be rejected from reserving until cleared by a physician. The coverage, meant to forestall deaths tied to medical neglect, mandated that arresting officers take such people to a hospital earlier than they could possibly be booked into the jail.
However in follow the rollout wasn’t so clear-cut, prompting pushback from native regulation enforcement businesses, together with the San Antonio Police Division over public security considerations.
In response, the sheriff’s workplace revised the coverage’s language to be much less inflexible.
“We backed off it a bit. We might see the place it was being misconstrued, it was in all probability worded just a little too strongly,” he stated.“It’s nonetheless being applied, however I feel that we have now backed off, being so extreme in a few of these instances.”
Even so, he acknowledged that drug and alcohol withdrawal can turn out to be harmful with out a lot warning.
“We all know that withdrawals are a type of issues that you can be high quality till you’re not,” Salazar stated.”It could possibly be a matter of minutes or hours earlier than you begin displaying indicators, after which unexpectedly, you’ve taken a pointy decline. We’ve received to nonetheless watch out with issues like that.”
Krishnaveni Gundu, co-founder and government director of Texas Jail Mission,a nonprofit group that advocates for and with individuals incarcerated in Texas county jails and their family members, stated the latest deaths increase considerations about whether or not the jail has made significant change — or just accomplished the minimal to regain compliance.
“Now we have to do not forget that the Texas Fee on Jail Requirements are known as minimal jail requirements. The fee is a regulatory company, not oversight,” Gundu stated. “They’re flooring degree requirements, assembly them doesn’t really meaningfully translate into higher circumstances, higher care or safer circumstances and take care of detainees and workers.”
She stated even when the jail meets these minimums, it does little to deal with the underlying actuality: lots of the individuals coming into the jail are in medical or psychological well being disaster — and jail isn’t geared up to take care of them.
“Jails usually are not geared up to offer that emergency degree disaster care. They’re not set as much as even establish that within the form of screenings that they do generally,” Gundu stated. “It places individuals at a really excessive degree of threat. If we actually care about public security, the best way we have a look at public security wants to vary.”
Quite than treating county jails as default detox or psychiatric amenities, Gundu stated that extra states and counties have to put money into options that prioritize well being, housing and long-term help.
“Extra inexpensive housing, wraparound providers, substance use dysfunction therapy, disaster respite, disaster stabilization — a continuum of take care of individuals who have cycled by means of for years,” she added.
