No charges for Bland jailers, but arrest to face scrutiny

About two dozen people gathered outside of a Texas courthouse Tuesday to protest a grand jury’s refusal to indict any sheriff’s officials or jailers in the death of a Sandra Bland. The grand jury’s decision in the death of 28-year-old Sandra Bland does not conclude the matter.

Encinia has been on administrative leave since Bland’s death. In July, Bland, who is black, was pulled over for failing to signal a lane change. “The grand jury also considered things that occurred at the jail and did not return an indictment”.

“Whether you like it or not, the Supreme Court has made it clear police are in charge at a traffic stop, and they can make anybody get out of the auto – driver or passenger – for no reason whatsoever”, she said. Attorney Darrell Jordan of Houston is the special prosecutor on the case.

Melissa Hamilton, visiting criminal law scholar at the University of Houston, said Bland had no legal right to remain in her auto after the trooper ordered her out.

The Texas Department of Public Safety published the full police dashcam video Wednesday showing the arrest of Sandra Bland in Texas, who died three days later in a police cell.

Ms Bland’s sister Shante Needham has said Sandra had called her from jail, saying she did not know why she had been arrested and that an officer had possibly broken her arm. A judge set a January 2017 trial date in that case.

Muhammad says he agrees with Bland’s relatives who said they didn’t expect much from a grand jury system.

Ms Bland died by asphyxiation after using a plastic bag to hang herself in her cell, according to Waller County District Attorney Elton Mathias. “You wouldn’t have any information”, says Reed-Veal. He said lawyers haven’t been able to examine a Texas Rangers report on the incident because it’s grand jury evidence.

Bland’s sister didn’t immediately respond to a phone message requesting comment on the grand jury’s decision, and Reed-Veal couldn’t be reached for comment late Monday. The situation quickly escalates, with Mr Encinia appearing to threaten Ms Bland after she refuses to get out of her vehicle.

In the days after she died, county authorities released video from the jail to dispel the rumours and conspiracy theories.

The jury ruled that neither sheriff’s officials nor jailers committed a crime in their treatment of Bland. Rumors that Bland was dead before she arrived at the jail and other scenarios all were investigated by five attorneys appointed as special prosecutors along with Jordan, and none of them checked out, he said. Since then, Bland’s family has come to acknowledge it is at least possible Bland took her own life – though they remain adamant that even if the official version of events is true, it was still police negligence, and the officer who pulled Bland over in the first place, that really caused her death.