On July 13, 2015, Sandra Bland was found dead in her Waller County, Texas jail cell. She reportedly died of “self-inflicted asphyxiation,” i.e., suicide by hanging. Skeptical family members and friends don’t buy the Texas authorities’ account.
To add insult to injury, the Waller County Grand Jury declined to indict any county jail employees in the case of her death, despite the Texas Department of Public Safety announcing this past summer that the trooper who pulled over, and later arrested, Bland violated procedures.
“We are not going to allow what they have done in a limited, secret capacity to prevent us from doing what we need to do to get answers for the family,” Bland family attorney Cannon Lambert said Monday night, December 21, 2015.
Bland was pulled over in Prairie View, Texas. Law enforcers claimed she was argumentative and uncooperative when they arrested her and charged her with assaulting a public servant.
From Chicago, Bland’s mother, Geneva Read-Veal tells media, “Right now, the biggest problem for me is the entire process. I simply can’t have faith in a system that’s not inclusive of my family that’s supposed to have the investigation.”
