Roland Nadeau was, in the words of his attorney, Rebecca Webber, in a revolving door at the Travis County Jail. A former chiropractor now in his mid-60s, Nadeau did many short stints at the jail during two decades of living on the streets, coping with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
“He was always arrested for some nothing thing, causing trouble but not harming anyone,” Webber said. “And he gets dumped on the police, and they’re the ones that have to deal with it.”
Nadeau would also get dumped on the local hospitals, like he was in the spring of 2021, after a fellow homeless person hit him in the knee with a hammer. Records obtained by Webber show that Nadeau spent a week in a hospital in Smithville that May, being treated for a staph infection in the knee. Despite no improvement to the pain and swelling, he checked himself out. He was back at the Travis County Jail by that summer. Webber’s records demonstrate that jail officials examined his knee and wrote that Nadeau had a MRSA infection – a type of infection that is resistant to antibiotics. The Travis County Sheriff’s Office did not comment on this pending litigation…