Renowned civil rights attorney Ben Crump wants the DOJ to investigate rising deaths inside Harris County Jaiil. Crump's call for federal investigation comes after a year of record-breaking death rates inside Harris County Jail.
Scott Olson/Getty ImagesRenowned civil rights attorney Ben Crump on Monday called for federal authorities to investigate increasing deaths inside Harris County Jail, KPRC 2 reported.
Crump's request comes days after families of Harris County Jail victims pressed the Texas Commission on Jail Standards for answers during the agency's quarterly meeting in Austin last week. The group of families sought answers from Harris County and Texas' jail oversight agency after 28 people died in custody last year, the jail's deadliest year in at least a decade.
Crump represents the families of George Floyd, Tyre Nichols and Jacoby Pillow, who died in Harris County Jail in January.
According to the Harris County Sheriff's Office's report on his death, Pillow was detained inside a medical holding cell awaiting evaluation at the jail's clinic and Mental Health Unit. The Sheriff's Office said in the report that Pillow "swung at an officer," and that "officers fought with [Pillow] as they struggled to gain control of him."
Officers moved Pillow to another cell after the altercation, where he was later "observed to be unresponsive," according to the Sheriff's Office's report. Since Pillow's death on Jan. 3, three more detainees have died in Harris County Jail's custody. Pillow's family retained Crump a few weeks after Pillow's death.
"The facts of this case are extremely alarming, and they point to a pattern and culture of inmate abuse that we have seen before in Harris County facilities" Crump said in January. "There is no legitimate excuse for this young man to have lost his life for an arrest on a misdemeanor charge right as he was about to get out on bail. We need the Harris County Sheriff’s Office to be completely transparent with the Pillow family as they search for the details of what happened to Jacoby that night and why he didn’t make it out of jail alive."
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