They Investigate Police Killings. Their Record Is Wanting.

When the Texas Rangers learned that a pistillate had died successful a jailhouse southbound of Dallas, they enactment Adam Russell connected the case.

He recovered that determination had been a conflict betwixt the woman, Kelli Leanne Page, 46, who was being held connected cause charges, and 2 guards, who entered her compartment due to the fact that they said she would not halt banging a hairbrush against the door.

One jailer threw her to the floor, punched her successful the look portion they scuffled and piled atop her arsenic humor streamed from her nose. The other, a trainee weighing 390 pounds, pinned her down until she stopped breathing.

Six hours into his investigation, Ranger Russell indicated successful his notes, helium was not inclined to blasted the guards for her death. And erstwhile an autopsy aboriginal determined that Ms. Page was the unfortunate of a homicide — having died connected Oct. 8, 2017, of a signifier of asphyxiation — Ranger Russell appeared not to reconsider.

Instead, helium obtained a 2nd sentiment from a retired main aesculapian examiner, who work the forensic study and said helium believed that bosom illness mightiness person led to her decease portion she was being restrained. Ranger Russell aboriginal testified that the archetypal autopsy was a unreserved to judgement and that “something wrong Kelli” had killed her. The guards were not charged.

For galore years, Texas has made its authorities investigators, the fabled Rangers, disposable to reappraisal deaths that hap successful the custody of section authorities, filling a request that is particularly pressing successful agrarian areas. After the execution of George Floyd past twelvemonth by a Minneapolis constabulary officer, astatine slightest 7 different states person embraced a akin attack to Texas, reasoning that extracurricular inquiries are much apt to clasp wrongdoers accountable.

But authorities agents bash not needfully pb to amended investigations oregon greater accountability, according to a New York Times introspection of the grounds successful Texas. Drawing connected dozens of interviews and much than 6,000 pages of investigative files, autopsy reports, constabulary records and tribunal filings, The Times recovered that authorities investigations tin beryllium afflicted by the aforesaid shortcuts and pro-police biases that extracurricular interventions are meant to eliminate.

State investigators successful Texas reappraisal deaths successful custody much often than successful immoderate different state, records show, making it a affluent laboratory for studying however the investigations play out. The Rangers, successful effect to a nationalist records request, provided The Times with astir 300 lawsuit files completed since 2015, portion different documents were obtained from section constabulary departments, aesculapian examiners and tribunal proceedings.

Some of the Rangers’ investigations connection a textbook illustration of dogged constabulary work, similar the 1 into the overdose decease of James Dean Davis, 42, successful the La Salle County jailhouse successful 2017. Ranger Randy Garcia meticulously documented the neglect of guards who mocked Mr. Davis arsenic helium screamed for assistance from the level of his cell, interviewing much than a twelve witnesses and reviewing video footage and audio recordings — and securing indictments against 2 jailers for tampering with authorities records.

In different instances, the Rangers fell abbreviated of basal standards. They did not talk to each applicable witnesses, delegated investigative tasks to the agencies nether reappraisal and failed to travel up connected signs that officers were negligent oregon behaving dangerously. In the decease of Ms. Page, Mr. Russell sided with the 2 guards implicit 10 pathologists who behaviour autopsies successful Dallas County, location to 1 of the state’s largest aesculapian examiners’ offices.

The Times shared its findings with a half-dozen seasoned homicide detectives and policing experts successful six states, each of whom emphasized that decease investigations scope wide successful trouble and circumstances. When officers sprout and termination someone, for example, galore of the facts are not successful dispute, peculiarly the mode of death, and the unit mostly falls connected prosecutors to determine whether to dainty the sidesplitting arsenic a transgression act.

It gets much analyzable erstwhile nary shots are fired, they said, and determination is simply a conflict successful which the idiosyncratic successful custody stops breathing. A heavy introspection of those investigations offers hints astir the thoroughness of the extracurricular constabulary enactment due to the fact that authorities investigators indispensable retrace however officers utilized their hands, feet and assemblage value astatine each crook — and find whether those actions were appropriate.

The Times identified 29 cases the Rangers investigated since 2015 successful which a idiosyncratic stopped breathing aft struggling with section authorities. None of those inquiries led prosecutors to complaint anyone successful instrumentality enforcement. In two-thirds of the cases, The Times recovered shortcuts, missteps oregon judgement calls that immoderate seasoned homicide detectives said mightiness bespeak a deficiency of effort connected the Rangers’ part. For example:

• After Genaro Rocha II, 47, died successful an Amarillo jailhouse successful 2019, bound successful a harness and near successful a compartment due to the fact that guards said he’d kicked them, the Ranger did not grounds a azygous interrogation successful his lawsuit file.

• The Ranger who reviewed the 2018 decease of Andrew Carmona, 36, eastbound of San Antonio, started his probe 11 days afterward, due to the fact that section officials told him they did not request him determination close away. He ne'er visited the scene, a beforehand gait successful which an serviceman had held Mr. Carmona by the caput and cervix due to the fact that helium was acting “frantically.” And helium conducted 1 interrogation — with a toxicologist.

• The Ranger investigating the decease of Michael Cassel, 41, successful Tyler County successful 2016 provided video footage to lawyers for the sheriff’s deputies progressive earlier taking their statements. The deputies, who had struggled with Mr. Cassel successful the woods adjacent a road, heard him kick that helium could not respire earlier helium mislaid consciousness and died, records show.

The Texas Rangers who handled the assorted cases declined oregon did not respond to requests for interviews, and the Rangers’ genitor agency, the Department of Public Safety, would not marque immoderate authoritative disposable to reply questions. A spokeswoman did not respond to aggregate requests for comment.

It is simply a world of policing successful Texas and elsewhere that radical sometimes dice successful custody, done nary responsibility of the arresting officers. When officers bash transverse the line, investigators play an important relation successful holding them responsible. But the cases are often a little precedence than different duties due to the fact that of the galore demands placed connected constabulary agencies and the wide reluctance among instrumentality enforcement officials to delegate blasted to their own.

“I warrant you this is not a sought-after duty for the Texas Rangers,” said Adam Bercovici, a erstwhile homicide lieutenant for the Los Angeles Police Department who works arsenic a advisor and reviewed lawsuit files for The Times. “Nobody wants them, due to the fact that 99 percent of the clip it’s conscionable an unfortunate acceptable of circumstances. But it’s a batch of enactment to dot each the I’s and transverse the T’s.”

Surveillance cameras captured video but nary audio of her death, and Ranger Russell made nary notation successful his study of interviewing witnesses.

None of the aesculapian examiners progressive successful Ms. Page’s autopsy were called to attest astatine a proceeding astir the death, and erstwhile the main pathologist aboriginal asked for support to talk to The Times, the authoritative who had presided — the Coryell County justness of the bid — refused to assistance it. The pathologist said successful a little connection that the doctors stood by their ruling: homicide by mechanical asphyxiation.

All of it combined to permission the content that Ms. Page, who had 5 children and had agelong battled periods of sadness with drugs and alcohol, was conscionable different addict who had died successful jail, said 1 of her daughters, Tiffany Gruwell. When Ms. Gruwell thinks of her mother, a antithetic representation comes to mind, she said: 1 of a grandmother, clean, sober, beaming, cradling Ms. Gruwell’s girl Mari.

“She’s not conscionable her constabulary record, but truthful galore radical look astatine it that way,” Ms. Gruwell said. “I consciousness similar determination are a batch of unanswered questions astir what happened.”

A Patchwork Approach

In the past decade, flash points of constabulary unit crossed the state person focused attraction not lone connected assertive tactics and radical disparities successful instrumentality enforcement but besides connected the patchwork mode successful which the encounters are investigated.

Some states, similar California, person seldom sent their agents to reappraisal in-custody deaths, leaving those inquiries to section constabulary and sheriff’s departments.

Washington State has precocious relied connected a hybrid model, dispatching teams of section and authorities investigators. Officers indispensable recuse themselves if their squad is investigating a location agency.

Other states similar Georgia and North Carolina deploy authorities agencies by longstanding customized alternatively than ineligible request erstwhile section departments petition help. Texas operates overmuch the aforesaid way, though the instrumentality since 2017 has mandated autarkic investigations of jailhouse deaths.

In 2014, Wisconsin became the archetypal authorities to necessitate autarkic investigations of deaths involving constabulary officers, spurred by household members of Michael Bell Jr., who had been killed by the Kenosha police. The decease of Eric Garner connected Staten Island that twelvemonth led to an enforcement bid requiring the New York lawyer wide to analyse definite in-custody deaths.

The propulsion to mandate autarkic reviews has grown since Mr. Floyd’s execution successful 2020. At slightest 7 states person passed measures requiring section agencies to crook implicit in-custody decease inquiries to authorities officials oregon different extracurricular investigators. California’s instrumentality applies to shooting deaths of unarmed civilians, portion New York’s expanded to necessitate lawyer wide investigations of immoderate deaths perchance caused by instrumentality enforcement. Maine and Maryland person likewise turned to their attorneys general, portion Connecticut created a dedicated authorities office. Colorado and Florida besides imposed caller measures, and a fistful of different states, including Arkansas and Illinois, are considering the same.

“Let’s look it — if you travel from the aforesaid organization, you’re going to person immoderate level of bias nary substance however nonsubjective you effort to be,” said Ashley Heiberger, a erstwhile constabulary serviceman successful Bethlehem, Pa., who advises departments connected the usage of force. “We’re each human. There’s a precise understandable tendency to support our own.”

The 29 deaths reviewed by The Times happened passim the immense authorities of Texas, from the plains of the Panhandle to the marshes of the Gulf Coast. Most occurred extracurricular large metropolitan areas, and much than fractional of those killed were white. The remainder were mostly Hispanic, and conscionable 3 were Black — figures that astir tracked the regions’ populations.

The reappraisal suggested an uneven attack by the Rangers, though the grounds is unfastened to interpretation. Jay Coons, who spent 36 years astatine the Harris County Sheriff’s Office successful Texas, reviewed the lawsuit files astatine The Times’s request.

“Their actions look to beryllium methodical, successful keeping with existent investigative techniques, and I recovered nary grounds to suggest shoddy enactment oregon a deficiency of committedness successful seeking the truth,” said Mr. Coons, who is present a transgression justness prof astatine Sam Houston State University.

Mr. Bercovici, the erstwhile Los Angeles lieutenant, reached a antithetic conclusion, noting gaps successful immoderate of the inquiries, including a nonaccomplishment to property for contiguous interviews with the officers involved.

“You’re giving them a accidental to set their story,” helium said. “You request to beryllium successful a country with somebody. You request to look them successful the eye. You request to spot their assemblage language.”

In astatine slightest 16 of the cases, the Rangers failed to interrogation everyone who witnessed the encounter. They sometimes relied connected written statements oregon video footage instead, and successful astatine slightest 5 investigations, they interviewed nary witnesses astatine all.

The Times recovered 12 instances successful which the Rangers delayed going to the country oregon did not sojourn it. Delbert McNiel, 48, who had a past of intelligence illness, died successful a conflict with Hamlin constabulary officers aft they restrained him and past shocked him 11 times with a stun weapon successful December 2017. The Ranger assigned to the lawsuit went to the hospital, photographed the assemblage and conducted six little interviews with the officers and paramedics involved. But his study reflected nary interviews with different witnesses oregon a sojourn to the convenience store extracurricular of which Mr. McNiel died.

Rob Bub, a 33-year seasoned of the Los Angeles Police Department who present works arsenic an probe consultant, said a nonaccomplishment to analyse the decease determination was mostly a motion of “lazy investigating.”

“You person to spell retired to the scene,” helium said. “I don’t attraction if it’s a 30-year-old acold case. You spell retired to the scene.”

In 3 cases reviewed by The Times, the Rangers assigned important tasks to employees of the agencies nether investigation.

After Robert Geron Miller, 38, died pursuing a little enactment astatine the Tarrant County jailhouse successful July 2019, Ranger C.H. McDonald learned that helium had tussled violently with his jailers. Mr. Miller sustained caput injuries erstwhile 1 threw him to the ground, and helium complained of thorax symptom aft different defender blasted him with capsicum spray. He was dragged facedown to a compartment wherever different jailer saw him splayed retired connected the floor, splashing toilet h2o connected his face. Twelve minutes later, the Ranger noted, Mr. Miller stopped breathing.

Ranger McDonald described conducting 4 little interviews successful his record and near the task of watching video footage to a detective with the region sheriff’s bureau — the bureau liable for the jailhouse — who reported backmost that helium did not spot immoderate “suspicious oregon transgression behavior.” The Ranger closed the lawsuit astir 9 months later, connected learning that the aesculapian examiner had ruled that Mr. Miller’s decease was caused by a sickle compartment crisis.

Unanswered Questions

Three cases had reddish flags that mightiness person led detectives to behaviour much interviews oregon question further grounds if they weren’t investigating instrumentality enforcement. Instead, the Rangers closed them without overmuch scrutiny.

One progressive Coy Walker, 41, who had done situation clip for robbery and assault. Mr. Walker had struggled with intelligence unwellness and cause usage implicit the years but had seemed connected an upswing by outpouring 2015, his household would archer the Rangers. Then came the nighttime that May erstwhile Mr. Walker showed up astatine his parents’ location adjacent Weatherford, astir 30 miles westbound of Fort Worth, successful a chaotic panic.

Unable to calm her lad down, Mr. Walker’s parent called 911, asking for help. The Parker County Sheriff’s Office arrived soon after. An investigative study filed by Ranger McDonald, the aforesaid serviceman who handled the 2019 decease of Mr. Miller successful Tarrant County, documented what happened next.

The archetypal sheriff’s lawman said she recovered Mr. Walker successful the house, connected his backmost and surrounded by overturned furnishings and breached glass, swinging a curtain rod. She jolted him with a stun weapon and was struggling to get him into handcuffs erstwhile her backup, Corporal Ethan Stark, charged in. Corporal Stark leapt connected apical of Mr. Walker, enactment a genu connected his cervix and punched him successful the face, according to the Ranger report. While atop Mr. Walker, the lawman “choked him with some hands,” cursed astatine him and told him to obey commands — earlier realizing helium was not breathing, according to the Ranger’s interrogation with Mr. Walker’s father, who witnessed the encounter. Mr. Walker was taken to a adjacent infirmary but could not beryllium revived.

When Ranger McDonald interviewed the deputies, some said that Corporal Stark’s manus had slipped and accidentally grasped Mr. Walker’s throat. But an autopsy suggested much than casual contact, records and interviews show. The pathologist’s study showed that Mr. Walker’s hyoid, a delicate bony successful the precocious throat, was breached — an wounded good known among homicide investigators arsenic a imaginable motion of strangulation.

The aforesaid autopsy study showed that Mr. Walker besides had a ample magnitude of methamphetamine successful his system. The origin of decease was labeled “sudden decease during carnal restraint with cervix wounded and methamphetamine intoxication.” The mode was listed arsenic “undetermined.”

Mr. Bercovici, the erstwhile Los Angeles lieutenant, and different experienced decease investigators said that adjacent if a idiosyncratic was recovered to person drugs successful his system, a breached hyoid and an eyewitness relationship of strangulation ought to springiness an researcher pause. “If I was moving that investigation, I would measurement back,” Mr. Bercovici said. “That wouldn’t walk the odor trial for me.”

Records suggest that Ranger McDonald did not intermission aft learning of the caller evidence. On the aforesaid time helium received the autopsy report, helium presented his probe to a Parker County expansive jury, which brought nary charges.

The different cases were besides closed contempt troubling autopsy results.

The Ranger who reviewed the decease of Lorenzo Juarez extracurricular Austin learned from pathologists that helium had petechial hemorrhaging — tiny pin pricks of humor successful the eyes that besides suggest strangulation — portion being arrested successful 2018. Mr. Juarez, 47, was connected meth and had been swinging a metallic tube by the broadside of a roadworthy erstwhile the Bastrop County Sheriff’s Office was called to the scene. One lawman bore down connected Mr. Juarez with a forearm against the basal of his neck, and others enactment value connected him arsenic helium was fixed a dose of Versed, a sedative, by paramedics.

But aft the autopsy report, the Ranger, Brent Barina, documented nary effort to re-interview the deputies oregon different question an mentation for wherefore capillaries successful Mr. Juarez’s eyes mightiness person burst. The aesculapian examiner determined that the decease was an mishap caused by methamphetamine but noted a “component of asphyxia.”

The Ranger who investigated the decease of Wesley Manning, 40, turned successful a elaborate reappraisal of that case, which unfolded connected Rattlesnake Point Road successful Aransas County, adjacent Corpus Christi, successful 2015.

In a 59-page study based connected 12 interviews and aggregate videos, helium recounted however sheriff’s deputies and constabulary officers who believed that Mr. Manning was preventing his woman from receiving aesculapian attraction shocked him doubly with a stun gun, doused him with capsicum spray, threw him to the ground, dug a baton into his neck, enactment him successful handcuffs, pushed a genu into his back, jammed fingers into the unit points down his jaw, punched him and restrained his legs earlier helium stopped breathing.

The Ranger, Antonio DeLuna, besides noted that the aesculapian examiner ruled the decease a homicide caused by “sudden cardiac decease pursuing restraint procedures.” But helium did not see an further item from the forensic exam: that a portion of the cartilage astir his dependable container was fractured, different informing motion that decease investigators are trained to look for.

Despite the homicide ruling and the different thorough investigation, the result was the aforesaid arsenic successful the different cases. The Ranger presented to a expansive jury, which issued nary charges.

A Lack of Specialists

Despite its ample colonisation and onshore area, Texas employs astir 165 Rangers statewide — the Houston Police Department, by comparison, has 5,300 sworn officers — and astir of the Rangers enactment arsenic generalists, investigating large crimes and nationalist corruption cases and in-custody deaths depending connected the day.

In contrast, astir large constabulary departments person specialists, with astatine slightest 1 detective portion dedicated to solving murders and different convulsive crimes. That absorption allows detectives to summation cognition done repetition.

“If you’re not bringing successful idiosyncratic who has had a definite magnitude of training, you’re doing a disservice,” said Mr. Bub, the erstwhile Los Angeles detective. “There’s an expertise that goes with it.”

Clete Buckaloo, who spent 20 years with the Rangers earlier retiring arsenic a skipper successful 2007, described a strategy successful which Rangers are mostly assigned to tasks by geography.

“He’s liable for his area. He’s liable for responding to those calls,” Mr. Buckaloo said of the emblematic Ranger, astir each of whom are men. “He whitethorn beryllium moving a nationalist integrity investigation, helium whitethorn beryllium moving an officer-involved shooting that he’s been moving connected for respective weeks, and present helium gets a custodial death, and present helium conscionable gets that overmuch much successful his caseload.”

The Rangers declined to sermon their grooming and investigative tactics with The Times. But records and interviews amusement that Rangers are typically recruited from the ranks of the Texas Highway Patrol and mightiness not person investigated a homicide earlier signing up. Once hired, each Rangers person extended training, Mr. Buckaloo said, and galore larn connected the job.

But grooming guidelines and method champion practices cannot relationship for each concern an researcher volition encounter, and sometimes judgement calls indispensable beryllium made that tin impact the outcome. That was the lawsuit successful the decease of Michael Garrett successful Comal County successful 2019.

As the constabulary were arresting Mr. Garrett, 18, connected a cause possession complaint that December, an serviceman suspected helium had swallowed immoderate meth. Instead of putting Mr. Garrett into an ambulance, records show, helium took him to the region jail, wherever guards tried to strip-search him. When Mr. Garrett resisted, they forced him into a restraint instrumentality and near him extracurricular the jail’s power room. Soon after, a defender noticed that Mr. Garrett had turned purple, and helium was taken to a hospital.

Medical tests revealed meth successful his system, and helium was connected beingness enactment erstwhile the jailhouse contacted the territory attorney’s office, which issued a sworn connection indicating that Mr. Garrett would not beryllium charged. The jailhouse was past capable to merchandise him from custody and bypass rules for reporting the occurrence arsenic an in-custody death. The Comal County territory attorney, Jennifer Tharp, could not beryllium reached for comment.

Met with heavy respect among section officials, the Rangers often counsel connected transgression proceedings, and it would not person been antithetic for 1 to suggest an autopsy successful a lawsuit specified arsenic Mr. Garrett’s. But erstwhile the investigating Ranger, Joseph Evans, learned of the ineligible maneuver, helium made nary objection. Since Mr. Garrett was nary longer nether apprehension erstwhile helium died, Ranger Evans noted, “an autopsy could not beryllium ordered and would lone hap astatine the disbursal of Garrett’s family.”

He concluded that Mr. Garrett astir apt died due to the fact that of his “intentional ingestion of methamphetamines,” and past helium closed the case.

Arya Sundaram and Donovan J. Thomas contributed reporting. Susan C. Beachy and Sheelagh McNeill contributed research.