Inmates who died in county jail had treatable conditions

Kenneth Beckett died in September 2009 of respiratory failure caused by the swine flu, which he appeared to have contracted in the county jail. Records show he and other Harris County inmates who died in jail had flu, sepsis and other treatable infections.

Beckett, 27, awaiting trial on a murder charge, was taken to Ben Taub Hospital as his illness became acute. Before he died, he told an attending doctor that for five days he had experienced shortness of breath, chest pain, muscle ache, fever and chills while in the jail, according to his autopsy.

His mother, Shentia Beckett, said she was angry about the staff’s failure to get her son to a hospital.

“Some of the inmates called me — I don’t know how they got my number — and were telling me they were asking the people (jailers) to take him to the hospital, that he was real sick, but they wouldn’t take him,” Beckett recalled.

Carlos Phillips, 40, died of pneumonia with an MRSA infection in October 2014 after he had been transferred from jail to Ben Taub, according to a medical examiner’s investigation.

Other inmates complained of delays or inadequate care prior to their deaths, according to autopsies and family interviews.

Jerry Hernandez, 49, was booked into the jail in May of 2014 with abdominal injuries and complained of continued pain throughout the weeks he spent in jail. He told his wife the day before he died that the jail refused to give him medical treatment. Jail officials said he refused surgery, records show. He collapsed in his cell block on June 30, 2014, and died 32 minutes after arriving at a hospital. An autopsy shows he died of peritonitis, an abdominal infection that can be treated with antibiotics.