For most of his life, Frank Digges was not a nice guy. He racked up a string of felony convictions for violent offenses, once even shooting his own brother.

But around 15 years ago, as he was serving a life sentence in a Texas prison, he started to change, family members say. He calmed down some. He began helping others through his work as a jailhouse lawyer. And he found God.

Then on the evening of Oct. 22, five correctional officers stormed his solitary confinement cell at the Wynne Unit in Huntsville, looking to retrieve a container that the slim 63-year-old inmate had used to toss water at them. After spraying him with chemical agents, they went inside. The altercation that followed left Digges unresponsive, his face bloodied and his eyes swollen shut, and he had to be flown to a Houston hospital for treatment of his injuries. He lingered on life support for a few days, then died on Friday, officials confirmed.

“You can’t make me believe that was all done just because he was resisting,” his 51-year-old nephew Robert Digges told the Chronicle. “It doesn’t even look like he struggled.”

His death — among at least 7,500 major uses of force in Texan prisons this year — comes weeks after a prison sergeant at another unit was found not guilty of aggravated assault after he was captured on video fatally slamming a handcuffed prisoner onto the concrete ground.

Questions remain surrounding the chain of events leading up to Digges’ death. He had filed multiple lawsuits against the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, claiming he feared for his life. But it’s not clear if any of the officers involved in the Oct. 22 incident were among those he had sued. It’s also not clear whether he put up a fight, or whether the guards will face consequences; their disciplinary hearings are still pending. Video footage hasn’t been released, and prosecutors are still weighing whether to pursue charges. Correctional officers are allowed to use some level of force, and authorities have to figure out whether the altercation was justified.

State Sen. John Whitmire, a Houston Democrat who chairs the state Senate’s Criminal Justice Committee, is worried about what happened to Digges and how the case will proceed.

“No one is sent to prison to get beaten up and their life taken,” Whitmire said. “Now, I’m concerned about getting an objective review.”

‘He’ll be the first to tell you’

Digges first went to prison in the late 1970s, when it was still called the Texas Department of Corrections and the landmark Ruiz v. Estelle lawsuit challenging prison conditions — which led to federal oversight of Texas’ system and major reforms — had not yet remade the carceral landscape.

Prisons were even tougher then — but Digges was tough, too. He didn’t run with any gangs, his family said, but he was into meth and making enemies. After that first prison sentence — for a homicide conviction, according to state records — he faced a smattering of other charges, straying from the godly path that his mother, an ordained minister, had laid out for him. In 1988, he was convicted of aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon in Harris County and was sentenced to life in prison.

“He done some pretty bad things, he really has,” his nephew Robert said, “and he’ll be the first to tell you.”

Before settling into the Houston area and joining the Marines, Digges grew up in San Antonio in a big, religious family with six brothers, five sisters and a slew of nieces and nephews.

In the free world, they sometimes all ran around together and Robert — like his uncle — ended up going down a bad path. Eventually they ended up in the same prison.

As Robert remembers it, Digges was smart and scrappy, despite his slender frame. Then a little over a decade ago, Digges underwent a change — maybe just “touched by the Lord,” his nephew said — and a few years later so did Robert.

After Robert was released from prison in 2012, he says, he stayed out of trouble. And he regularly paid visits to his uncle in prison.

“Frank was truly a saved man,” Robert said. “He was totally into trying to help other people change and go to God.”

Digges still racked up disciplinary cases, though his nephew says it was because he couldn’t keep a low profile and kept refusing housing assignments he thought would put him in danger. Instead, he filed grievances and sued the prison system.

Last March, he filed a federal lawsuit against nearly two dozen prison officials, alleging constitutional violations and expressing fears of retaliation and harassment at the Beaumont prison, one of many units where he was housed over the years.

“I am in fear of imminent bodily injury and death,” he wrote in the suit. “I would ask the court to consider the allegations and facts written in this complaint in support of my life and safety.”

He also alleged escalating “retaliation and indifference” from prison officials fielding his complaints relating to confiscated property and claims that officers were bringing false disciplinary charges to get back at him for threatening to file grievances.

Though a federal judge in Beaumont recommended dismissing the case because he hadn’t gone through the prison system’s full grievance procedures yet, Digges objected. That legal claim was still wending through the courts at the time of Digges’ death.

A ‘hardened’ population

For the past decade, use of force in the Texas prison system has been on the rise. By the end of August, the agency’s monthly reports show, TDCJ had recorded 7,501 major uses of force — an average of 937 a month. Last year, the agency averaged 815 a month, compared to more than 550 a month a decade ago.

In the past, prison officials attributed other shifts — like increases in assaults and the use of chemical agents — to an uptick in the number of people serving time for violent offenses and a spike in the number of mentally ill prisoners.

“Staff is dealing with a more hardened, violent inmate population,” agency spokesman Jason Clark said last year.

Given his disciplinary history, Digges was high-security “G5” status, officials said. He spent almost all his time locked in isolation.

On Oct. 21, Clark said, Digges stuck his hands out the tray slot in his cell door and refused to let officers close it until a sergeant showed up on scene. Clark didn’t offer details about the dispute, but Digges’ family said it was because he hadn’t been given a snack he was supposed to get in light of his hypoglycemia, a condition caused by low blood sugar.

The next evening, according to prison officials, Digges used some type of container to toss hot water from his cell. When he refused to hand over the container even after a supervisor ordered him to do so, a five-officer team stormed his cell. They sprayed him with chemical agents, Clark said, but he still refused to comply, so they went in.

It’s not clear what happened then or how much Digges fought back. But by the time the officers left, Digges was not responsive. Medical staff assessed his injuries and called 911. He was transported to a nearby hospital in Huntsville, then flown to Memorial Hermann in Houston.

While he was on life support, his family visited, taking pictures to document his condition. He had staples in his head, and spinal fluid leaking from his nose and eyes. His grown daughter sat by his bedside, hanging her head as she touched him and said her goodbyes.

Prison officials haven’t released the names of the officers involved, but Clark confirmed that four now have pending disciplinary hearings.

The agency launched an internal investigation and the Office of the Inspector General, the prison system’s investigative arm, is probing the case. The Special Prosecution Unit confirmed that its investigators are looking into the matter as well.

“Some level of force is permitted,” said Jack Choate, executive director of the SPU. “The question is whether the use of force was a reasonable effort to maintain the security of the prison, and that’s what our investigation will be looking at.”

To Robert Digges, the idea that his uncle would put up a fight meriting so much force over a single container raised more questions than it answered.

“I spent 20 years in there, I’ve seen numerous cell extractions where they go in and get an inmate who refused to come out,” he said. “But I’ve never seen anybody beat this bad.”

On Monday, Robert — along with his wife, as well as Frank’s daughter, and her fiancé, drove to Huntsville to pick up Digges’ belongings.

They all fit into one cardboard box.

keri.blakinger@chron.com