No Charges Against Jailers in Bland Death

A grand jury declined to issue indictments related to the July arrest and subsequent death of Sandra Bland, who died in police custody.

Sandra Bland was taken handcuffed to the county jail in Hempstead, where she remained when she was unable to raise $500 for bail.

The case is not over, howevrer.

After a grand jury refused to hand down indictments against police officers for the jailhouse death of Sandra Bland, finding she hanged herself in her cell, “social justice” activists and journalists refused to accept the finding.

Her family has questioned the medical examiner’s finding that she killed herself. Her family also said she was not suicidal, the county argues. Geneva Reed-Veal and Sharon Cooper, Bland’s mother and sister, maintain that suicide was out of the question for Sandra, but the report noted a number of cuts on her wrist. She was pulled over on July 10 and found dead in her cell the morning of July 13.

The goal is to act as a buffer between prosecutors and the public and grand juries are meant to act as independent investigators with the power to seek additional evidence. She was discovered dead in her jail cell three days later, hanging from a cell partition with a plastic garbage bag used as a ligature around her neck.

At a news conference earlier Monday, the family of Bland said they do not believe her case is being thoroughly investigated by the Texas Rangers or properly presented to a grand jury by special prosecutors, the Tribune reported. A confrontation between Bland and the officers followed.

The grand jury will return to work in January to consider charges against Encinia.

“We’re happy to speak with (the family)”, Jordan said Monday. After reviewing evidence, it decided not to indict anyone, including staff at the Waller County Jail, where Bland was held. “Their lawyer spoke to the press yesterday and called the grand jury a ‘sham of a proceeding.’ So we’re really going to have to see what happens going forward”.

“Right now the biggest problem for me is the entire process”, Reed-Veal said, according to CNN.

Bland family attorney Cannon Lambert said the timing of the grand jury process has been disrespectful to the family.

“#SandraBland’s case shows that we need to do more than #SayHerName”.

Whatever the cause of death there is one thing for certain; it was a wrongful death and the family of Sandra Bland has since filed a wrongful death lawsuit to get justice and answers to what actually happened to their loved one.

A grand jury ruled Monday that jailers and sheriff’s officials would not be indicted for their treatment of Bland, according to the Associated Press. “I have never heard of a criminal case where the prosecutor did not talk to the victim’s family… any parent deserves to know anything out there that relates to the death of their child”.