County inmate’s death is under investigation

A man accused of assaulting a family member and injuring an elderly person committed suicide in his cell at the Bexar County Jail, the sheriff ’s office said.

Ryan Legg, 36, was booked into the jail on Monday on charges of family assault-second offense and causing bodily injury to an elderly person.

On Thursday night, a sheriff ’s deputy conducting routine checks around 10:36 p.m. found Legg unresponsive in his cell, the sheriff ’s office said.

Deputies attempted life-saving measures until EMS personnel arrived, the office said. Legg was pronounced dead at 11:06 p.m.

The sheriff ’s office did not disclose how Legg killed himself.

“Preliminarily, it appears that all BCSO policy and procedures were followed while the unit officer conducted cell checks,” a sheriff’s office spokeswoman, Adelina Simpson, said in a news release.

Simpson added that in keeping with standard procedure, the sheriff’s criminal investigations, internal affairs and public integrity units are investigating.

The Karnes County Sheriff’s Office will conduct a separate investigation.

The Sandra Bland Act, signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott in 2017, requires that an independent law enforcement agency investigate any jail death.

Bland, 28, an African American woman from Illinois, was found dead in the Waller County jail in 2015.

A state trooper had pulled her over in Prairie View for failing to signal a lane change. When Bland’s conversation with trooper Brian Encinia grew heated, Encinia arrested her on a charge of assaulting a public servant.

She was found dead in her jail cell three days later. The death was ruled a suicide.

Encinia was later fired by the Department of Public Safety. He agreed to surrender his police certification and to never again seek work in law enforcement in any capacity.