Indictment isn’t enough to fix county jail’s woes
It’s been almost two years since Jaquaree Simmons died after being found unconscious in the Harris County Jail. Shortly after, 11 employees were fired and another six were suspended without pay. But in the months since, his mother LaRhonda Biggles has waited to see how many of them would face criminal charges in the death of her 23-year-old son. Now she knows: only one. Former detention officer Eric Morales, 28, was charged with second degree felony manslaughter for allegedly kneeing Simmons in the head, hitting his head against a door and dropping him on his head. There is no video of the incident but Morales would’ve towered above Simmons, standing more than a foot taller and more than double his weight.
“I’m glad they did indict somebody,” she told the editorial board, still catching her breath from the news she received Monday and the barrage of phone calls that followed. “But I don’t feel satisfied.”
“Everybody up there played a part,” she said.
Simmons reportedly called his mother almost every day while he was in the jail in the midst of the February 2021 freeze, telling her he was “losing his mind in there.” Six days after being jailed, he was accused of clogging the toilet in his cell, flooding it. A fight with detention officers followed. Then later, when he allegedly threw a tray at a jailer, there was another fight. Afterward, medical staff at the jail ordered an X-ray but staff didn’t take him, even after the power came back on. Simmons died of blunt force trauma, according to the medical examiner, just seven days after being booked for a felonin-possession-of-a-weapon charge.
The case — reportedly the first time an officer in the jail has ever been charged for an in-custody death — has underscored deep, festering problems within and beyond the jail: a system overloaded, staff overburdened and deadly consequences.
“The system is so far beyond its capacity at this point that you’re going to see stuff like this continue to happen,” Jay Jenkins, the Harris County project attorney at the Texas Center for Justice and Equity, told us.
An indictment is one step toward accountability but, as we wrote before, there are many other steps that must be taken to prevent more deaths.
In the aftermath of Simmons’ death, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez gave a sense of urgency to needed reforms in the jail. “I owe it to him, to his mother and to our community to do everything in my power to ensure those who had a hand in it are held accountable and that this sort of thing never happens again,” he said in a press conference.
He touted ongoing and new changes to the jail, including adding more cameras and new training for detention officers. More than 1,160 staff members have completed the training since it began in June 2021, according to the sheriff ’s office.
Is it enough?
Not even close.
There is blame to go around. Jail staff feel stretched beyond their limits, saying they need up to 500 more positions filled. A courthouse backlog means too often people are languishing in the jail, many of whom need mental health care.
Inmates in the jail stay for an average of more than 200 days, according to the sheriff ’s office. By comparison, a recent Pew Charitable Trusts study looking at county jails in Louisville Jefferson, Durham and St. Louis counties found that the inmates stayed in jail for an average of more than 100 days for violent felony charges, which represent the majority of Harris County’s jail population.
Staff have demanded more support, more training, more hiring. County commissioners recently voted to add $5.6 million to the sheriff ’s office, which will help alleviate some of the need, but not all.
Other challenges range from natural disasters and the pandemic to rocky transitions to new health care providers.
But the key to making the jail a safer place is to ensure fewer people end up there. That’s done by improving mental health support outside the jail and by the district attorney and judges clearing the backlog with more deliberate urgency.
“There is no simple answer except to be more careful who we lock up,” Alex Bunin, chief public defender, said. “Pretrial detention should not be a death sentence.”
Too often, it is. More than two dozen families lost a loved one while they were in the jail’s custody in 2022. A state oversight commission cited it twice for violating standards. Once for keeping 64 people in holding cells for longer than 48 hours and again for failing to give insulin and blood pressure medicine to a man who died as a result.
“In cases where persons need medical care, the jail is almost always the most dangerous place for them,” Bunin said.
In initial reporting after Morales’ indictment, it seemed there could be more coming in the case, but a DA spokesperson said Tuesday that the grand jury investigating the case isn't expected to bring any more.
“For two years I’ve dealt with this,” says Biggles, the grieving mother, who has also filed a wrongful death lawsuit. “I will never see his face again.”
There may not be more charges coming. But there must be more changes.
More changes still needed at Harris lockup after 2021 death of inmate Simmons.