A grand jury convened by the Harris County District Attorney today failed to return indictments against Harris County Sheriff’s Deputies for their roles in the 2025 killing of Alexis Jovany Cardenas.
NPAP Executive Director Lauren Bonds responded: “Deputies at the Harris County Jail turned old traffic tickets into a death sentence for our client, Alexis Jovany Cardenas, who should never have been there in the first place. The grand jury’s refusal to issue indictments does not exonerate the officers, the Sheriff’s Department, or the jail. It is, itself, an indictment of our system. A system that believes law enforcement officers can do no wrong, and that every person killed by the police deserved it. The Harris County Jail is notorious for systemic violence and in-custody deaths. Sheriff Ed Gonzalez has known about these problems for years, and covered them up instead of fixing them. The greater Houston community is simply not safe when officers of the law are allowed to kill us with impunity.”
She continued, “Alexis Jovany Cardenas was a son, father, husband, and friend. He didn’t lose his humanity when he was arrested. He didn’t lose his humanity when he told police he couldn’t be released at 1AM with a dead phone. He wanted to live. The officers who killed him and Sheriff Gonzalez — who has repeatedly minimized, covered up, and excused this behavior — must be held accountable. We are moving forward with our civil case and will keep fighting until Mr. Cardenas, his family, and the residents of Harris County achieve transparency and a measure of justice, and the deaths at the Harris County Jail end.”
About the Case, Cardenas et. al. v. Harris County, Texas et. al.
On July 6, 2025, Alexis Jovany Cardenas was arrested on a decade-old municipal warrant for unpaid traffic tickets. Although his charges were dismissed shortly after being booked, he was not released until after midnight on July 8 — nearly 17 hours later. In damning video footage released by the Harris County Sheriff’s Office (HCSO), Mr. Cardenas is shown trying to explain to two officers that he cannot leave the jail in the middle of the night without a working cellphone, or plan to get home safely. In response, the two officers assaulted Mr. Cardenas, and were joined by several more, who are shown throwing him to the ground and pinning him to the floor, face-down. Officers restrained Mr. Cardenas for over 7 minutes — long after he had stopped breathing.
Several more HCSO officers, including supervising sergeants, looked on as Mr. Cardenas struggled for his life and took his final breaths. Throughout the repeated assaults, Mr. Cardenas was unarmed and non-threatening, having been deemed safe for release from the jail for minor, non-violent traffic violations which were dismissed in their entirety 17 hours before his death. The Harris County Medical Examiner ruled Cardenas’ death a homicide.
Mr. Cardenas’s killing is not an isolated tragedy. Harris County Jail has a long, documented history of beating inmates to death or serious injury, a culture of violence so pervasive and notorious that it prompted two separate federal investigations — one in 2008 by the U.S. Department of Justice and another in 2023 by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The situation has only worsened under the leadership of Sheriff Ed Gonzalez, with use of force incidents per year tripling under his tenure. In fact, Mr. Cardenas was one of 20 people who died a violent death in the Harris County Jail in 2025, the year the County became third in the nation for the most in-custody deaths.
The vast majority of people detained in Harris County’s entire system are awaiting trial. Many of the people who died in Harris County’s custody, at both the downtown jail and Louisiana annexes, were denied medical care until it was too late. Others, like Mr. Cardenas, were beaten to death by guards. The County also settled a lawsuit for $1.25M for the wrongful death of Fred Harris, after the jail failed to follow minimum standards for incarcerating a person with special needs.
In February 2026, NPAP and Houston-based attorney L. Lee Thweatt filed a federal civil rights lawsuit on behalf of Mr. Cardenas’ family. Under a federal government that has abandoned all investigations into patterns and practices of violent policing, civil lawsuits remain one of the only remaining avenues for Mr. Cardenas’ family to achieve any semblance of justice, and finally put an end to these tragic, unnecessary deaths.