No Indictments For Waller County Jail Employees

The announcement of the grand jury’s decision came just hours after Bland’s family criticized the handling of her case, which they said was not being thoroughly investigated by the Texas Rangers or properly presented by special prosecutors. Her story made national headlines as video footage from the officer’s dashboard camera at the traffic stop emerged, showing how quickly the incident escalated between Bland and State Trooper Brian Encinia.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that she, like too many African Americans who die in police custody, would be alive today if she were a white woman”, he continued.

An attorney for the Bland family said relatives was not surprised by the findings. Encinia has been on administrative duty since her death in July.

By determining no felony was committed by the sheriff’s office or the jail where she was held, Bland’s death was in effect ruled a suicide.

A grand jury also refused to indict Darren Wilson, the police officer who killed unarmed black teen Michael Brown, and Daniel Pantaleo, the officer who strangled black father Eric Garner to death on a Staten Island sidewalk for allegedly selling untaxed cigarettes.

Special prosecutor Darrell Jordan said on Monday grand jurors would reconvene next month to discuss other potential indictments, The New York Times reports. The jail was similarly cited in 2012 for violating the 60-minute observation standard after an inmate was found hanging by a bed sheet. The grand jury’s decision in the death of 28-year-old Sandra Bland does not conclude the matter. The encounter soon became heated, and Encinia arrested Bland.

Bland’s mother, Geneva Reed-Veal, has said the traffic stop was unwarranted and that her daughter should never have been in the jail cell. A judge last week set it for trial in January 2017. In the days after Bland died, county authorities released video from the jail to dispel rumors and conspiracy theories that she was dead before she arrived at the jail or was killed while in custody. “I simply can’t have faith in a system that’s not inclusive of my family that’s supposed to have the investigation”.