The first job of jailers is to keep your idiot kids and family members alive. They may be guilty, maybe not, that’s not the obligation of the jail. Their job is to not kill you or allow you to kill yourself. THIS is one heartbreaking thing and maybe since Jim Smith is a reserved deputy maybe he can go to work at the jail, I hear they are understaffed.

Jim Smith, Reserve Deputy/Commissioner, I say let’s let him go to work as a jailer

Smilin’ Jailer Jim………..

Mother sues over son’s suicide death in McLennan County Jail (wacotrib.com)

Mother of McLennan County inmate who died by suicide sues county

A lawsuit filed by relatives of a man who died by suicide in McLennan County Jail two years ago is on hold after the man’s mother filed a separate lawsuit this week.

Jesse James Evans, 25, died June 3, 2022, at an area hospital after attempting self harm while in custody at the jail. He had been booked there after a family violence arrest a few hours earlier in West Waco.

Jail staff checked on Evans six times between 7:05 p.m. and 7:32 p.m. that day, with medics and assistance called at 7:45 p.m. when Evans was found unresponsive, according to jail records. His autopsy from the Dallas County Medical Examiner indicates he died by hanging and the manner of his death was suicide, the Tribune-Herald previously reported.

A Texas Rangers investigation of the incident led to no criminal charges, McLennan County District Attorney Josh Tetens said.

Rangers’ investigations of in-custody deaths consider criminal conduct, not potential civil liability for violations of rights.

In August, Evans’ father, Stephen Young, and an aunt, Yvette Giraud, filed a wrongful death suit in Waco’s federal court on behalf of themselves, Evans’ heirs and other wrongful death beneficiaries.

Young and Giraud’s suit had progressed to the point where Judge Jeffrey Manske had set a trial date in May 2025 and they had a deadline to submit a settlement demand to the defendant McLennan County.

Manske signed an order Tuesday vacating the deadline for settlement demand and putting the case on hold, at the request of Young’s and Giraud’s attorney, because Evans’ mother, Rose Lyons, filed a similar suit over Evans’ death in the same federal court.

“Ms. Lyons filed her original complaint unbeknownst to either Plaintiff,” the request to put Young’s and Giraud’s suit on hold says. “Yvette Giraud, as the estate administrator for the Estate of Jesse James Evans, represents the interests of all wrongful death beneficiaries and all heirs. Thus Ms. Giraud, as estate administrator, was already asserting Ms. Lyons’ claims in this matter when Ms. Lyons filed her lawsuit.”

Now that Lyons has retained her own lawyers to represent her interests, Young and Giraud are no longer in a position to make “a global settlement demand for Plaintiffs, which would necessarily include all wrongful death beneficiaries and all heirs.”

In her suit, Lyons asserts claims not only against the county, as Young and Giraud do, but also against the jail nurse who processed Evans into jail and the two city of Waco police officers who arrested Evans and brought him to jail to be booked. Lyons is suing under the Fourteenth Amendment and case law that requires a jail “to protect pretrial detainees from a known risk of suicide.”

None of the attorneys on either case, for the various plaintiffs or for the defense, immediately answered Tribune-Herald questions Wednesday about whether the two suits would be combined.

Lyons’ suit says the officers who arrested Evans did not report to the jail that Evans expressed suicidal ideation to them while they were taking him into custody and transporting him to jail.

It says the nurse who processed Evans into jail allowed him to be placed in a cell with a tearable blanket and tie-off points.

“Every competent jailer, jail administrator, and policymaker regarding jails in the United States knows that suicide precautions include appropriate monitoring, removal of ligatures from a cell, and not incarcerating a person in a cell with tie-off points for any potential ligature,” Lyons’ suit says. “Suicide precautions also include use of a suicide smock, which is a jacket that cannot be easily torn and thus cannot be easily used as a ligature, in addition to tear proof bedding.”

Lyons goes on assert that Evans’ prior records of incarceration at McLennan County Jail were not properly reviewed, that jail staff at shift change did not properly notify those who would oversee Evans on suicide watch of the risk he posed, and that his mental health status was not determined by a qualified mental health professional.

While McLennan County Sheriff Parnell McNamara is not named as a defendant in the opening pages of the suit, it does cite him as the policymaker in all matters pertaining to how the jail is run and how jail staff are trained to run it.

Lyons seeks actual damages, loss of affection, mental anguish and other damages, without specifying a dollar amount.

This newest suit is still in the earliest preliminary stages, with only the county and the nurse having been notified and responding to the court with attorneys of record. The two Waco police officers have not returned notice to the court or responded with attorneys of record.