Family files suit over son’s suicide in jail

Fort Bend facility accused of being lax on cell checks

Fort Bend County was already on official notice for what a lawyer called “an atrocious record” of preventing jail suicides when Eugene Ethridge Jr. was found in November 2015 in his cell hanging from a bed sheet.

Less than three weeks before Ethridge died, the Texas Commission on Jail Standards had warned the sheriff that the jail was at risk for being out of compliance with state law because it failed to check cells at regular intervals on the day in September 2015 when another inmate committed suicide, officials said.

Now, Ethridge’s father, Eugene Ethridge Sr., is suing in federal court on behalf of himself and his son’s four minor children, contending the county, Fort Bend County Sheriff Troy Nehls and other officials associated with the jail are responsible for deliberate, unconstitutional acts that led to his son’s wrongful death.

Ethridge Sr. said the jail’s lax cell checks deprived his grandchildren of their father, who had been arrested on a charge

of driving while intoxicated.

“I want to find out why they didn’t check on my son,” he said. “I hope this doesn’t happen to any other family.”

Nehls and the county judge were not available for comment Tuesday afternoon when the lawsuit was filed. At the time of Ethridge’s death, a sheriff’s spokesman said all inmates were screened for suicide risk as part of the intake process.

However, Randall Kallinen, the attorney representing Ethridge’s family, said “the jail has an atrocious record of failing to prevent suicides.”

The lawsuit filed in Houston claims that officials showed deliberate indifference by depriving Ethridge Jr. of adequate supervision, observation and medical care after the jail was put on notice regarding the prior suicide.

Kallinen said the jailers needed to make regular cell checks: “They were warned about the same thing, which could have saved him, 19 days before, and they didn’t do it.”

The lawsuit also says the jail didn’t make any effort to tell employees they needed to do the checks.

“We did not see any remedial measures done in those 19 days — no memos going out, no supervisors talking to people,” Kallinen said. “They failed to do rounds.”

According to the lawsuit, Heriberto Correas died by hanging at the Fort Bend County Jail on Sept. 29, 2015. Following his death, the Texas Commission on Jail Standards sent a letter on Oct. 15, 2015, saying the Fort Bend lockup was “at-risk” of being out of compliance for not completing face-to-face checks.

The letter said the jail needed to take corrective action, said Brandon Wood, executive director of the Texas Commission on Jail Standards.

In Correas’ case, the checks had to happen every 30 minutes, because he had been designated a higher risk, and those checks did not happen. In Ethridge’s case, a few months later, the cell checks were expected to happen every 60 minutes, but they did not.

The 33-year-old father of four had been booked at the jail two days prior to his death, on Nov. 1. He was distraught, focusing on the repercussions the arrest would have on his children and family, Kallinen said.

Ethridge was found dead on Nov. 3, 2015. Two days later, the state’s jail commission found the facility was noncompliant with its basic standards, but by Dec. 21, 2015, it was back in compliance and has remained in compliance ever since, said Wood.

Wood said there have been four suicides at the jail in the past five years.

Every time a death in custody happens, the commission takes it very seriously, he said.

“It is very disconcerting. One is enough to cause concern,” he said. “They were at risk and a second suicide occurred. They simply were not following minimum jail standard.”

To Kallinen, the county had a simple task: to keep track of its charges. The veteran civil rights lawyer called it one of the worst failures of a jail system he’d seen.

“You’re told point blank by the agency to do the checks,” he said. “What more warning do they need?”

“I want to find out why they didn’t check on my son. I hope this doesn’t happen to any other family.” Eugene Ethridge Sr., father of inmate who committed suicide