No indictments in Sandra Bland jail death case

In the days after her death, authorities also released video from the jail after claims that the Chicago-area woman was dead before she arrived at the jail or was killed while in custody. The case is set to go to trial in January 2017. 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.

Based on everything we know right now about that traffic stop, I still maintain that Bland wound up in that Waller County jail cell simply because she was driving while black. Three days later, she was found dead in her cell.

Her family has questioned the medical examiner’s finding that she killed herself.

Cannon Lambert Sr., left, attorney for Sandra Bland’s family, speaks at a news conference Monday, Dec. 21, 2015 in Chicago.

At a new conference Monday before the grand jury’s decision was announced, several of Bland’s relatives and an attorney representing the family in a wrongful death lawsuit called the grand jury investigation a “farce” and complained that prosecutors did not reach out to them during the probe. But the news that grand jurors had decided not to return any indictments five months after the fact underscores just how hard it is to hold anyone accountable when encounters with the police turn deadly.

With this latest grand jury development coming at the same time that the headlines are filled with Ethan “Affluenza” Couch’s great escape, it’s hard not to make comparisons.

County officials have contended that she was treated well in jail.

“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.

A day after a grand jury decided against indicting anyone in the jail death of Sandra Bland, a special prosecutor denied accusations of a cover-up from the family of the Naperville woman and said he was “begging to meet with them” to discuss the investigation. In July, Waller County Jail was cited by the Texas Commission on Jail Standards for substandard training in how to handle potentially suicidal inmates, and for failing to personally observe an inmate at least once per hour. Out of all of that, the grand jury cleared jail employees of criminal wrongdoing and did not return an indictment related to Bland’s death. He told her the reason for the stop was the improper lane change and said he was about to give her a warning ticket, according to the dashcam video released by the Texas DPS.

The grand jury’s decision prompted a response from at least one presidential candidate. State lawyers have asked a judge to dismiss the lawsuit.

Bland’s family disputed the account that she killed herself. This summer, trooper Brian Encinia pulled Bland over for a traffic stop.

Officials previously concluded Bland’s autopsy showed no evidence of homicide.

The 28-year-old African-American was arrested after a confrontation with a policeman who had pulled her vehicle over. Police Commissioner Kevin Davis said this week that the officers involved in a recent pilot program to study their use want the cameras back because they foster “the trust we need to build with our community, the two-way respect that we need to push public safety forward in Baltimore”.