Hays County Deputy Shoots, Kills Patient in Kyle Emergency Room

Hays County Sheriff vehicles sit outside the San Marcos jail (photo by Jana Birchum)

The Hays County Sheriff's Office is under the microscope after an unnamed corrections officer shot and killed jail inmate Joshua Wright in the emergency room of a Kyle hospital Dec. 12.

A Sheriff's Office news release hours after the shooting stated that "a Hays County Correc­tions Officer was guarding an inmate who was getting medical treatment at Seton Hospital in Kyle. The inmate in an attempt to escape, assaulted the corrections officer and ran on foot through the emergency room" before the officer shot Wright, killing him.

But Hays County's highest elected official, County Judge Ruben Becerra, brought the account into question in a press release of his own the next day: "There are reports circulating that have not yet been answered by the Sheriff's Office – that the pretrial detainee who was shot had his feet shackled; that he was shot in the back, multiple times; that a taser was available but not used – and so I am asking for further clarity." Becerra also asked that body-camera video of the shooting be released by Dec. 27, 10 business days after it occurred.

Becerra declined comment for this story, as did the Sheriff's Department and officials at Ascension Seton Hays Hospital – a spokesperson said the shooting is part of an ongoing investigation by the Texas Rangers. We did, however, find a witness who corroborated the report of multiple gunshots.

Janet Huston and her sister were waiting in one of several small cubicles adjacent to the Kyle emergency room at noon on Dec. 12 when a person in a cubicle next to theirs walked down the hall. "In 10 seconds she came flying back," Huston told us. "And then, bam! We heard the first shot. And then a man said, 'Get on the floor! Put your belly on the floor!' And then bam, bam, bam, bam – four shots .... It was terrifying, and this is in the hall, 10 yards from where we're sitting behind a curtain." Huston and her sister were placed in a locked room after the shooting and released 15 minutes later.

Statewide law enforcement officials have seemed to close ranks around the Sheriff's Office. Charley Wilkison, executive director of the Combined Law Enforcement Assoc­iations of Texas, tweeted on the night of the shooting, without citing sources, that Wright had "grabbed sharp medical instruments" and begun running toward hospital staff before he was shot. The next night, Wil­kison changed his tweet, replacing "grabbed sharp medical instruments" with "moved toward sharp medical instruments." Mean­while, Sgt. Deon Cockrell, speaking on behalf of the Rangers, told the Hays Free Press, "If [Wright] was a violent felon, [the shooting] may be justified." This echoed the tenor of the press release from the Sheriff's Office, which listed the offenses for which Wright was being held (though none involved violence).

Jordan Buckley of the Caldwell/Hays Examiner – who broke the story hours after Wright's death – pointed in his reporting to a New York Times investigation that found that none of the 29 deaths in custody investigated by the Rangers since 2015 have led to charges against any officer. "Suggesting that the justification for shooting someone to death depends on what crimes they are charged with ... underscores how totally unreliable the Rangers will be in evaluating the circumstances of Joshua Wright's killing," Buckley wrote.