Many bid farewell to Illinois woman who died in Texas jail

“We absolutely reject everything that Waller County has done in terms of trying to disrespect, denigrate and completely dishonor her character and her personality”, she said.

“We know for certainty she had just gotten to Texas [on July 9], she had gone grocery shopping and filled her refrigerator”.

About 1,000 mourners, friends and family members of Sandra Bland, a 28-year-old Chicago native, will gather for a wake at 9 a.m., ABC 7 reports.

An autopsy released Friday showed that Bland hanged herself with a clear plastic bag tied into a slipknot.

The independent autopsy Sandra Bland’s family ordered is still pending. The case is being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Texas Rangers, a law enforcement agency with statewide jurisdiction. Prosecutors have said results could take weeks.

When the officer pointed the taser in Ms. Bland’s face and threatened to “light her up”, he was “clearly violating her constitutional rights”, says Mr. Harrington.

Bland was in the Waller County jail for three days, charged with assaulting a public servant, after a traffic stop conducted by Texas state trooper Brian Encinia turned violent.

The majority of people attending Bland’s funeral Saturday had never met her. Yet mothers stood in line outside the Lisle church for almost an hour under the unforgiving sun, a thick layer of sweat forming on their foreheads and those of the crying infants they held in their arms.

“That baby did not take herself out of here”, Ms Reed-Veal said. “We celebrate that Sandy Bland was… a young lady who refused to be subdued and silenced”.

The summer of 2014 marked the deaths of Eric Garner in New York City on July 17 and Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri on August 9.

Similar calls for change were made at the South Carolina funerals for Walter Scott, the 50-year-old father of four who was gunned down in North Charleston by a white police officer in April, and for the nine African Americans killed by a white gunman in a Charleston church in June.

Another video, taken by a bystander, showed the officer forcing her to the ground as they argued. Tap to see photos of Bland’s death probe if viewing on News app.

Debate over what caused Bland’s death has also erupted on social media. At the funeral, her mother said, “If she was a criminal, ain’t no way she would have been hired at one of the best companies”.

“What we’ve happened upon is not a racial issue”.

In another one, she admits she is a bit depressed and experiencing some PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder.).