Bernie Sanders says Sandra Bland would be alive if she were white

Her death was ruled a suicide, and has sparked national protests and investigations by multiple law enforcement agencies, including a Waller County grand jury.

Bland’s family has filed a civil suit in an attempt to force the county and individuals involved to take responsibility for their role in her death. A Houston Chronicle investigation found numerous instances where jailers skipped scheduled cell checks and fabricated records to hide the fact that they had failed to make rounds. For reasons we’ll never completely understand, she took her own life before she had that money. It’s even bigger for the family of Sandra Bland, and so this group of special prosecutors has put in long hours and now we are presenting the fruit of our labor to the grand jury.

It has not yet been determined whether the police officer who arrested her should face charges, a prosecutor said.

Sandra Bland was pulled over for a traffic stop in Waller County in July. She was transported to Waller County Jail, where her body was found hanging by a trash bag in her cell three days later. So, the question of whether or not the altercation that led to her arrest stemmed from a legal action on her part will be one that the grand jury has to weigh in its probing of Encinia’s actions.

The family’s lawyers echoed the family’s concerns and said they have little faith in proceedings over evidence that isn’t released to the public.

Jordan said prosecutors have approached Bland’s family in order to discuss the grand jury process. He asked her to get out of the auto, she refused, and he tried to yank her out.

A police dashboard video shows how a routine traffic stop by Texas State Trooper Brian Encinia escalated into a verbal and physical confrontation between him and the 28-year-old Bland.

Her death came amid increasing scrutiny across the nation over police treatment of African-Americans after the deaths of unarmed African-Americans by police, including Michael Brown, Tamir Rice and Eric Garner. The grand jury will return in January to consider that issue.

“When I see them on the news stating they have been left out of the process that’s not because of us”, Jordan told the Sun-Times on Tuesday, noting that he could not contact the family directly due to their pending wrongful death lawsuit against Waller County.

Relatives question the finding that she killed herself.

The family argues that the jailers should have checked on Bland more frequently after she reportedly disclosed to them that she had previously been suicidal.

“There’s nothing in there that shows anything happened but she killed herself”, Mathis had said. “The idea for that is to allow police to control a potentially unsafe situation”.