Two years after Houston native and U.S. Army veteran Christon Collins died in custody at the DeKalb County Jail in Georgia, his family is still walking, talking and refusing to let his case fade from view.
On Sunday, friends and relatives gathered at Godwin Park in Meyerland for a memorial walk marking the anniversary of Collins’s death. Neighbors, veterans’ advocates, and community supporters joined the family, saying the search for answers is far from over. Collins collapsed in March 2024 during what his mother describes as a mental-health crisis, and his death has already triggered criminal charges and a federal civil-rights lawsuit. Organizers said the Houston event was meant both to honor Collins and to demand better treatment of veterans held in jails.
Houston Remembrance, Same Tough Questions
According to KPRC Click2Houston, Collins’s mother, Dr. Jonia Milburn, led the walk and told the crowd she would keep pressing officials for transparency. The family says surveillance video obtained through an open-records request shows Collins collapsing and lying unresponsive for hours before staff stepped in to help. Civil-rights attorney Ben Crump has joined the family’s legal team and has argued that Collins’s death points to deeper failures in jail oversight and mental-health support for veterans. The family’s federal civil-rights lawsuit, filed in October 2025, is now in the discovery phase, the station reports.
Video Footage, Dueling Toxicology Reports Fuel Doubt
Atlanta outlets that have followed the case say the surveillance footage and medical files only raise more questions about what happened to Collins after he went down in his cell. WSB-TV reported that detention staff did not provide aid for hours and that records indicate a guard was on her phone instead of performing CPR. FOX 5 Atlanta noted a discrepancy between a county medical examiner’s report that found fentanyl in Collins’s system and an Emory toxicology report that found none. Those inconsistencies, along with the video, sit at the center of the family’s demand for answers.
Criminal Case and Civil Suit Push Ahead
Prosecutors later indicted fellow detainee Tobias Woods, accusing him of supplying the fentanyl-laced drug. Woods pleaded guilty and received a 10-year sentence, according to reporting by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. That sentencing lined up with the family’s public announcement of a federal wrongful-death suit in October 2025, and local coverage has detailed the complaint and the defendants it names. Hoodline’s writeup notes the civil action and the family’s push for policy changes and damages, saying the case has reignited debate over contraband and medical care inside the county jail, and that the family had already federal civil rights lawsuit.
What The Lawyers Want From DeKalb County
Crump’s office has said the case exposes systemic problems in how jails respond to people in mental-health crisis and has vowed to seek both accountability and change, according to the firm’s press release. Ben Crump Law says it plans to use federal discovery to obtain internal policies, training records and additional surveillance footage. Local reporting has described internal discipline for at least two jailers and highlighted lingering questions about how contraband entered the facility; those materials are now part of the litigation record. WSB-TV has covered the files the family obtained and how they clash with some of the county’s initial public statements.
Houston Pushes For Change At Home…