Dallas, Texas attorney Lee Merritt has announced he will run for Texas Attorney General in 2022. Merritt will run against current sitting AG Ken Paxton. Merritt was compelled to run for office after the recent death of Marvin Scott III according to Texas Public Radio. Scott died while in police custody in Collin County jail after he was arrested by the Allen Police Department during a episode related to schizophrenia, corrections staff had pepper-sprayed him, covered his head with a spit hood, and forcefully tied him down to a bed the news outlet reported. The attorney is currently representing the Scott family.

“I’ve decided that this case being the line, that I’m running against Ken Paxton for attorney general in 2022,” Merritt said last Friday. “I’m tired, tired, tired of getting phone calls.”

Merritt has identified a pattern in police mishandling residents who need mental health care which sometimes results in death. Texas Public Radio listed recent cases of Black men connected by the Civil Rights lawyer, all in Texas who died at the hands of law enforcement during mental health crises. Damian Daniels a Iraq war veteran was killed by Bexar County sheriff’s deputies after exhibiting paranoia. Darius Tarver, a college student, was killed last year by the Denton Police during a mental health episode.

“Our community — and I don’t mean the Black community, I mean Texas — will die from this,” Merritt said. “It will rip up this state if we don’t address this because they’re going to keep killing us. Law enforcement will keep killing people suffering from mental health crises and it will cause additional trauma to the community.”

Merritt has represented the families of several victims of police violence and brutality including Botham Jean and Atatiana Jefferson.  “Never mind that they’re veterans, that they’re medical students like Atatiana Jefferson, that they’re accountants like Botham Jean. They’re Black and he just doesn’t see them,” Merritt said of Paxton. “He doesn’t see them.”

“I am running for Attorney General of Texas.,” Merritt tweeted Saturday. “Texas deserves an attorney general that will fight for the constitutional rights of all citizens.”

The current attorney general in Texas Ken Paxton first assumed office in 2015 and his current term ends on January 17, 2023. According to Ballotpedia, he ran for re-election and won in the general election on November 6, 2018.

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