Man Dies After Collapsing In Dallas County Jail Lobby

Follow CBSDFW.COM: Facebook | Twitter

DALLAS (CBS11) - A man is dead after police say he ran into the jail lobby screaming. Now investigators with the Dallas County Sheriff's Department are trying to figure out what led to his death.

The Sheriff's office identified the man Saturday evening as Joseph Sheldon Hutcheson, 48. Hutcheson was an inmate in the jail from February 2014 to July 2014.  He'd been charged with public intoxication and evading arrest.

Investigators say it started in the crosswalk on Commerce Street when Hutcheson abandoned his pickup truck and ran toward the jail.

Deputies say he ran first to the jail's south tower yelling that his wife was after him and trying to hurt him. Then he went to the main lobby claiming she was trying to kill him.

A spokesperson for the department says the man was behaving erratically and would not calm down before officers had to restrain him. That's when the man collapsed, and deputies began CPR until paramedics arrived to take him to Parkland Hospital where he was later pronounced dead.

One witness says the man seemed to be having some sort of health problem as soon as he parked his truck in the crosswalk.

"He jumped out of his truck with his chest, holding his chest like this," said the witness who asked to be identified only as Gregory G. clutching his own chest,  and walked up here, and I walked up behind him, and I said maybe you've been shot in the chest or something."

(©2015 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)