Was it suicide or murder?

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Autopsy: Immigrant inmate had blunt trauma
No conclusion on how wounds were inflicted
By HARVEY RICE Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle
Aug. 28, 2008, 11:34PM


GALVESTON — An autopsy report released Thursday is unlikely to resolve a dispute over whether a 17-year-old illegal immigrant was beaten by League City police before hanging himself in the Galveston County Jail.

The report said Arturo Chavez had a half-inch wound on the right side of his head, black eyes and marks on his back, but reached no conclusion as to how the wounds were inflicted.

"There is blunt trauma," said Stephen Pustilnik, Galveston County chief medical examiner. "Whether you would call that a beating, I don't know. He could have hit his head on something or something could have hit him in the head."

A Galveston County Sheriff's Office report says Chavez was being housed in the medical wing of the jail when he hanged himself Aug. 3 because nurses were unsure whether bruising around his eyes was caused by infection or injury.

His parents, who live in Guatemala, have filed a federal lawsuit accusing League City police of using excessive force and Galveston County jail officials of ignoring his suicidal tendencies.

Chavez, who entered the country illegally, was arrested for driving without a valid license and was being held for immigration officials Aug. 1, when he bolted from his cell, according to League City police reports.

Officers struck Chavez three times with a baton and shocked him with a Taser twice after he tried to scale a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire, according to the reports.

The reports says he caused $300 in damage to the fence and was taken to the hospital for a cut hand.

Police accused him of escape, resisting arrest and criminal mischief, then transferred him to the Galveston County Jail.

Chavez, who was taking classes at Clear Creek High School and working as a busboy at a Webster restaurant, gave a false name to League City police and jail officials — Juan Esteban Baten Tzun — and lied about his age, saying he was 19.

Unsure about the cause of his black eyes, jail nurses placed Chavez in a special cell for prisoners with communicable diseases that prevents air from circulating to other parts of the lockup, according to sheriff's reports.

Reports said he complained that his eyes hurt and that he seemed to be tolerating his cell even though he felt claustrophobic.

The cell is next to the padded suicide cells that are supposed to be under constant observation and checked every 15 minutes.

The reports show Chavez was screened, and his answers gave no indication of suicidal tendencies.

A guard reported that Chavez, referred to as Batentzun in the reports, and another inmate were watching Apollo 13 on television from their cells about 6:40 p.m.

Chavez asked the guard several times for permission to make a phone call, but was denied because he already had made a call that day, the report says.

About 10:19 p.m. the inmate across the hall from Chavez's cell reported seeing him hanging in his cell.

Chavez had tied a blanket to a shower head, pulled it across a partition and tied the other end around his neck.

Guards and nurses cut him down, administered CPR and used a defibrillator in a failed attempt to restart the heart with an electrical jolt, all to no avail, the reports say.

A log sheet shows that he was taken to the University of Texas Medical Center at Galveston, where he was pronounced dead about 11:11 p.m.

harvey.rice@chron.com

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