Sheriff’s officials said Raymond Cooper died following a medical emergency while in custody, the 12th death reported at the jail this year.
Alex Stuckey / Staff writer
Alex Stuckey is an investigative reporter for the Houston Landing. She is a 2017 Pulitzer Prize and 2022 Livingston Award winner. In 2022, she received the Charles E. Green Award for Star Reporter of the Year while working at the Houston Chronicle. Since graduating college in 2012, journalism has taken her to five different states, where she's covered a nuclear research facility, the Missouri Legislature, the mishandling of sexual assault reports at colleges and universities and even NASA. Her reporting throughout the years has put two people in prison, resulted in federal investigations at higher education institutions and overhauled broken policies at the state and local level. She loves falling down information rabbit holes, playing in spreadsheets and listening to Gilmore Girls on repeat at work. When she's off the clock, you can usually find her playing with her dogs, Waffle and Moby, curled up on the couch with a good book or on her yoga mat.
Posted inInvestigations
This Harris County program serves the most vulnerable. But it won’t bail them out of jail.
The county-funded guardianship program is designed to help those with severe mental health cases in Houston, but its policies keep the inmates incarcerated.
Posted inInvestigations
10 people have died in Harris County Jail in 2023. Five were identified as mentally ill
The Houston Landing found that half of the 10 people who have died in Harris County Jail this year previously had been identified as mentally ill by law enforcement, court or jail personnel.
Posted inInvestigations
New law could reveal why Texans with mental illnesses are languishing in jail
A new law signed by Gov. Greg Abbott could reveal why the system is failing nearly 2,500 people in need of access to state-funded psychiatric care.
Posted inInvestigations
Nearly 200 people with mental illnesses died in Texas jails. The death toll is getting worse.
Despite efforts to divert people from state jails into mental health treatment, our investigation shows the death toll of inmates with documented symptoms has exponentially grown since 2012.
Posted inInvestigations
Search our data: Inmates with mental illnesses who died in Texas jails over the past decade
The Houston Landing examined thousands of public records to determine how many people with mental illnesses died from unnatural causes in the custody of county and municipal jails across Texas over the last decade.
Posted inInvestigations
Parents of man who died in Harris County Jail sue officials. They’re not the first.
The parents of a man who died in the Harris County Jail in 2021 allege that Sheriff Ed Gonzalez’s repeated refusal to adhere to state requirements regarding inmate monitoring directly resulted in their son’s death at age 33. Rowena and Rory Ward, Sr. filed a lawsuit Monday night against the county, almost two years to […]
Posted inInvestigations
Search our data: 52 lawsuits filed by Harris County Jail inmates, families over treatment and conditions
This post was updated Aug. 7, 2023 with new information as more lawsuits have been filed and settlement agreements have become available. The Houston Landing searched 10 years of county and federal court records to determine the number of lawsuits related to Harris County Jail conditions and treatment filed by current and former Harris County […]
Posted inInvestigations
Texas could finally collect data on how often jail inmates are denied mental health care
AUSTIN — Melissa Shearer spends her days working with mentally ill Texans caught up in the criminal justice system — 90 percent of whom received care through publicly funded community mental health centers. But Shearer, director of Travis County’s Mental Health Public Defender Office, told lawmakers Wednesday that it’s incredibly difficult to get information about […]
Posted inInvestigations
Lina Hidalgo pledges funds for jail program, citing investigation by Houston Landing
In the months leading up to Rory Ward’s death in the Harris County Jail in 2021, the Houston native waited for an evaluation that would have determined his capability to understand and participate in his legal case. And if he couldn’t – if he was found incompetent to stand trial – Ward could have entered […]