Dallas to pay family of man found unresponsive in custody $1M

The Dallas City Council has approved a $1 million settlement for the family of a man who died after first responders were accused of failing to get him proper medical help. 

Juan Segovia’s family sued the city in June after they said the 45-year-old was not medically tended to while extremely intoxicated and in custody, court documents showed. 

“He was basically nonresponsive the entire time, couldn’t speak, didn’t even know his name,” Scott Palmer, the attorney representing Segovia’s family, said, per The Dallas Morning News. “No one did any of the things you’re normally supposed to do with a person who’s incapacitated.”

In June 2019, Segovia was taken to jail, left unattended overnight and died after being taken to a hospital the following morning. 

“If fraternity brothers at a party dumped a drunk, unconscious, and non-responsive pledge in a back room where no medical attention would be provided until he died, they would be criminally charged in that death. This is precisely what happened in this case, only instead of fraternity brothers, they were Dallas Police Officers and Jailers,” the lawsuit said.

The family filed the lawsuit against the city and the eight first responders who encountered Segovia saying they did not provide adequate aid at the time.

Dallas did not formally respond to the lawsuit’s accusations, but Senior Assistant City Attorney Lindsay Wilson Gowin said the family and the city agreed to discuss the matter with a mediator in an effort to “resolve this matter to avoid costly and protracted litigation,” the Morning News reported.

Since this case, a sobering center was opened in the City Detention Center in Dallas in order to prevent intoxicated people from going to jail and instead provide them a place to recover under the supervision of case workers, the newspaper added.