‘Quite a nightmare.’ Mother of man who died in Tarrant jail describes unreleased video

Read the latest in our coverage of the death of Anthony Johnson Jr. and other issues in Tarrant County jail.

The mother of a man who died in the Tarrant County jail in April expressed heartbreak and trauma Tuesday at having seen unreleased footage of the altercation with jailers that ended with her son’s death.

“What I saw, I will need counseling for the rest of my life,” said Jacqualyne Johnson during a press conference in Fort Worth. “I saw my son take his last breath.”

Her son, Anthony Johnson, 31, died on April 21 after being arrested two days earlier while experiencing a mental health crisis. He suffered from schizophrenia.

Sheriff Bill Waybourn held a press conference on Thursday to release part of the security camera and cell phone video of Johnson’s death.

The video released to the public was around five and a half minutes long, but Johnson’s mother and sisters said that the full video is around 15 minutes long.

“If they release the whole 15 minutes to anyone out there, if you want to watch it, do so, but I want you guys to understand that there’s going to be times where you’re going to see that and you’re going to have a nightmare,” said Johnson’s sister Chanell Johnson. “It’s not — it’s inhumane.”

Video released Thursday by Tarrant County Sheriff Bill Waybourn shows a large detention officer put his weight on Anthony Johnson Jr. with his knee on the handcuffed inmate’s back for about 90 seconds before Johnson became unresponsive and later was pronounced dead.

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Seconds after the officer knelt on him, Johnson can be heard on the video saying he can’t breathe. That officer and the supervisor on duty at the jail were fired this week after the Texas Rangers completed interviews Wednesday in their criminal investigation of Johnson’s death. The investigation is ongoing and no charges have been announced.

Chanell Johnson added that they had not seen the video before the edited section was released to the public, but rather had been shown it at the District Attorney’s Office the same time as the sheriff’s press conference.

“Having to go in and then being told that the update is seeing the video, and then finding out that not only am I watching this video, but the whole world is watching it, at least the six minute parts of it, at the same time as I’m watching it,” Chanell Johnson said.

The full video is “between 14 and 15 minutes,” Jacualyne Johnson told the Star-Telegram in an interview after Tuesday’s press conference.

“So from the time that you saw, didn’t see any of that — him being picked up and put into a chair, you didn’t see him going down the elevator,” she said. “That’s all that second half that you guys haven’t seen.”

While she said she could not have measured the time perfectly, she said that the unreleased footage shows that Johnson was not given medical care for around eight minutes.

“We saw mucus and everything come from his nostrils, and right there, he was gone,” she said. “So they kept talking about putting leg irons even after he was gone. No one paid attention to the fact that he was gone.”

Johnson’s other sister Janell Johnson called out Waybourn for what she said was a lack of communication and accountability on the part of the sheriff’s office. She called the footage a “15-minute video of y’all torturing my brother,” and said that policing in Texas is “inhumane.”

“This isn’t a conspiracy anymore, this isn’t in my head anymore,” she cried with tears streaming down her face. “This is my little brother.”

The family’s lawyer, Daryl Washington, told reporters that Johnson’s funeral will be held at 10 a.m. on Friday at Mansfield Funeral Home. It will be open to the public.

Activists with the advocacy group United My Justice called for a protest downtown on Wednesday, May 29.