Photo by 254texascourthouses.net
SAN DIEGO, Texas — Eric Perez, a 41 year old man from Benavides, Texas has died after being detained in the Duval County Jail.
Since this death took place while in the custody of Texas law enforcement, it has automatically triggered an investigation by the Texas Rangers.
According to Duval County Sheriff Romeo Ramirez, Mr. Perez was arrested for public intoxication around 12:30 am and held for a few hours before being released. In the State of Texas, public intoxication is a Class C misdemeanor, which means Mr. Perez would only have to be detained for a short while and then pay a fine for his citation. Unfortunately, as we now know, Mr. Perez never got to that point.
The Duval County Sheriff’s Office claims that Mr. Perez was released after just a few hours, but he refused to leave and refused medical attention several times. They allegedly re-arrested him for what they say was “disorderly behavior.” The Sheriff’s Office says they called EMS services to attend to Mr. Perez, but he refused their medical care at that time.
The corrections officer who was assigned to Mr. Perez allegedly checked on him several times and reported loud banging coming from his holding room. However, when they returned to check on him for the final time, he was unresponsive. CPR was administered en route to Christus Spohn Hospital in Alice where Mr. Perez was pronounced dead.
Unfortunately, the Sheriff’s Office has not released any corroborating information such as body cam or facility camera footage that could help shed some light on the situation.
Belinda Everett, the mother of Eric Perez was later called to Christus Spohn in Alice to identify her son’s remains. She claims that his face had experienced severe trauma, “When I got to see him, he was beat up so bad. He had bumps all over his head, a bandaged forehead, scrapes on his chin, a messed-up cheek bone, his head was just traumatized so much. It looked like he couldn’t defend himself. Like if he was handcuffed and got a lot of blows to the head.”
The incident remains under investigation by the Texas Rangers.