“Shawn is amazing. He loves music. He loves Pop-Tarts. He is so sweet,” said Christy Bridgman. Bridgman said her 26-year-old son, Shawn Fraraccio, has the mind of a 6- to 8-year-old child. “He [doesn’t] know the fact that he is in jail,” she said. “He thinks he’s at JPS Hospital. ” Fraraccio has been in custody at the Tarrant County Jail since December 2024. A spokesperson for the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office said Fraraccio was first arrested on Dec. 14 by Azle Police for assault causing bodily injury to a family member. The spokesperson said Fraraccio was released later that day. He was arrested again on Dec. 18. Bridgman said in the first incident, her son was having a meltdown when a neighbor called the police. The second time, she called the crisis line for help getting her son under control. Bridgman said she never thought Fraraccio would end up in jail, and that she doesn’t want to press charges. “I am not his victim,” Bridgman said. “I am his mother and I care about my son and I want him out.” Fraraccio is being held on a charge of continuous violence against the family. “It is inhumane to put a 6-year-old in a jail cell. I mean, would anybody else do that? No,” Bridgman said. “It is absolutely insane and ridiculous.” Bridgman said her son and others inside the jail with intellectual disabilities need to be at state mental health facilities. “They don’t need to be housed in a jail. They don’t need to be caged. They need placement,” she said. Bridgman is also worried about her son’s health. She said he’s lost a lot of weight over the last year. “He’s literally deteriorating here,” she said. NBC 5 toured the jail and saw Fraraccio’s cell. He was asleep under a blanket at the time. A supervisor maintains that Fraraccio gets three meals a day, sometimes double portions and sometimes Cheetos, a favorite snack of his. “They have found that he likes to eat breakfast more than he does lunch, so they really — he gets double portions of everything,” said Tarrant County Sheriff Bill Waybourn. Waybourn acknowledged that Fraraccio has lost weight, down from 200 pounds in December 2024 to about 165 pounds now. “His environment had changed drastically, so he was under some stress, and it’s natural to lose some weight. His weight is healthy,” Waybourn said. Still, he agreed with Bridgman and other advocates who said Fraraccio shouldn’t be in jail. “It’s one of those sad situations where law enforcement had little or no choice in the matter, according to the penal code, to act upon what the evidence says they saw,” Waybourn said. He said if there was a more appropriate placement available for Fraraccio at the time, they would’ve taken it. “If there had been a bed ready for him, we would have got him there,” Waybourn said. Now that Fraraccio has been found incompetent to stand trial, the sheriff’s office said that means he cannot be bonded out, and has to stay in custody until he can get to a State Supported Living Center, or SSLC. “And now we’re stuck in this waiting game,” Waybourn said. A spokesperson for the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office said the incompetency ruling puts the case on hold, “and the criminal proceedings in a sense are paused until competency is restored.” “The safety of our community is our goal. Medical professionals have told us this defendant needs to be in a state-supported living center. Our concern is for the safety of his mother, his safety, and the safety of the community in general. Mr. Fraraccio needs the proper care to accomplish this goal,” the spokesperson wrote in a statement to NBC 5. Waybourn said there are 62 people in the county who are also deemed incompetent and who are waiting for a state bed. He said the wait can “sometimes take up to a thousand days.” “It’s a very sad state of affairs,” he added. According to his mother, Fraraccio has been a patient of My Health My Resources of Tarrant County since he was a child. According to the sheriff and jail personnel, MHMR continues to care for Fraraccio daily. The agency said it can’t comment on specific patients, but that Texas Health and Human Services (HHS) operates all SSLCs. “Placement determinations are made by HHS based on bed availability and other considerations,” wrote Catherine Carlton, MHMR of Tarrant County chief of staff. She said they help families connect to HHSC and prepare for placement, but MHMR “does not determine eligibility, placement or timelines.” Waybourn said he’s had cases similar to Fraraccio’s and expects there to be more. “We as a state and society need to decide what we are going to do with these people? Because, based on the evidence that I’ve seen, it’s not his fault that he’s here,” Waybourn said. He said he and other sheriffs, judges, and district attorneys across the state have advocated for expanding beds at state mental health facilities, and he plans to continue that advocacy this legislative session. “I refer to them as kids, just like this, with these 5 and 6 and 7-year-old minds and 20-year-old bodies. What are we going to do with them? And it needs to be humane and fair and good,” Waybourn said. Bridgman thinks the police should never have been called on her son in the first place. “It’s unbelievable and absolutely heart-wrenching to have to come and see your child and take a cage,” she said. She said she’s determined to get her one and only child out of jail until he gets a state bed. “Ever since he’s been in jail, I’ve missed his Christmas. I’ve missed Easter with him. I missed his birthday,” Bridgman said. “446 days too long and it’s time to free him.” ...read more read less