Custodial Death at Ector County Jail: Douglas Walter Hassell, 55, Found Dead in His Cell October 21, 2022, While the Sheriff Sought Overtime to Cover Understaffed Floors — Attorney911 Holds Counties, Sheriff’s Offices and Jail Medical Contractors Accountable for Missed Cell Checks and Untreated Medical Needs Under Section 1983 Deliberate-Indifference Law, We Preserve the CCTV Footage, Cell-Check Logs and Intake Screening Before the Overwrite Cycle Erases Them and the Texas Tort Claims Act Notice Deadline Expires, Texas Rangers Investigating Under the State’s Custodial-Death Protocol and Texas Commission on Jail Standards Observation Rules, Ralph Manginello’s 27+ Years of Federal-Court Trial Practice, Avvo-Rated Excellent, Lupe Peña the Former Insurance-Defense Insider, Millions Recovered in Wrongful-Death Cases — Free 24/7 Consultation, No Fee Unless We Win, Hablamos Español, 1-888-ATTY-911
When Your Family Member Dies in the Ector County Jail, the Answers Are Not Going to Come to You You received a phone call that no family should ever get. A 55-year-old man was found dead in his cell at the Ector County Law Enforcement Center in Odessa, Texas, on a Friday afternoon in October 2022. Maybe you were told he was discovered at 5:40 p.m. Maybe you were not told anything else — not what happened in the hours before, not whether anyone checked on him, not whether he asked for help that never came. Maybe the next of kin could not even be located at first, and days passed before anyone in your family even knew he was gone. We are going to tell you what we tell every family that calls us in this moment: the jail is not going to explain itself. The Sheriff’s Office will release a brief statement. The Texas Rangers will open an investigation that may take six months or more. And the evidence — the video, the cell-check logs, the intake medical screening — is already on a clock, erasing itself in some cases within weeks. The answers you are owed are…