Tarrant County Jail faces scrutiny after 7th inmate death; sheriff says he's a victim of transparency

For the third time since August and the seventh time this year, a Tarrant County Jail inmate has died while in custody. 

It has a county commissioner calling for an investigation, but the sheriff says none of the inmate deaths this year have been attributed to abuse or neglect. 

Video from inside the Tarrant County Jail shows guards removing 46-year-old inmate Mack Greer from his cell back in June and transporting him on a gurney to JPS hospital, where he would later die. 

Greer, who had been arrested for theft, acted erratically in the days before, according to Tarrant County Sheriff Bill Waybourn. 

"After he was in general population for a little bit, he banged his head," said Waybourn. "He intentionally banged his head a little bit, didn't hurt himself."

"While in that custody, he suffered fatal head injuries," Tarrant County Commissioner Alisa Simmons said in a statement days after Greer's death.

Simmons'comments infuriated Waybourn, who said they improperly suggested that Greer died from abuse. 

Tuesday, the sheriff announced an autopsy found that Greer actually died from an undiagnosed medical condition. 

"There's a lot of times that somebody walks into the jail, they're horribly sick," Waybourn said. 

Waybourn is defending his operation of the jail after the death on Sunday of 41-year-old Broshundrick McNeal. 

She was incarcerated after being arrested earlier this month for aggravated assault. McNeal is the seventh Tarrant County Jail inmate to die in custody this year. 

The cause of her death and that of two others remains undetermined, and there are renewed calls for an outside investigation. 

Waybourn says Tarrant County believes the scrutiny he is facing over in-custody deaths is unfair. He says other county jails in Texas, such as Harris, Bexar and Dallas, have had more jail deaths since he took office in 2017. 

Texas jail deaths by county since 2017:

• Harris: 149
• Bexar: 115
• Dallas: 85
• Tarrant: 79

"Well, I think one of the appearances is because we're one of the very few major counties that sends out a press release when we have a death in custody, and we've been doing that for several years," said Waybourn.

Waybourn accuses his critics of politicizing a problem that all jails face, and that he's a victim of being more transparent than other sheriffs.