5,900 Texans have died in custody since 2016, data shows
NORTH TEXAS (CBSNewsTexas.com) — It has been nearly seven years since Tony Timpa died in the custody of Dallas police, and on Monday, a civil case against four officers was delayed.
Timpa was one of 627 people to die in state custody in 2016. Since 2016, there have been more than 5,900 in-custody deaths in the State of Texas.
That number includes any inmate death at a jail or prison, as well as when a person is being arrested.
An analysis by the nonprofit Texas Justice Initiative shows that the majority of these deaths were from natural causes or illness. Seven-hundred-and-sixty-nine of them were homicides and 290 were accidental.
Most happened at medical facilities, but 1,020 happened inside a jail or prison, and 731 happened at the scene of a crime or an arrest.
Zooming into North Texas, there have been 373 in-custody deaths since 2016 in Collin, Dallas, Denton, Ellis and Tarrant counties. Of these, 34% were classified as homicides.
Learn more about in-custody deaths in Texas here.
