Sandra Bland’s family to file lawsuit against Waller County Sheriff’s Department

Following the announcement a reporter asked Bland’s mother why her daughter’s bail wasn’t paid, forcing her to stay in jail for three days over a traffic stop.

Bland’s mother, Geneva Reed-Veal, holding a Bible during the news conference, said the events that led to her daughter’s death began with an unwarranted traffic stop.

The DPS said it has not been notified about the lawsuit and declined to discuss “potential or pending litigation”. The family have denied that she was suicidal.

– July 16: Waller County District Attorney Elton Mathis announces that the findings of a Texas Rangers investigation will be presented to grand jury.

Bland’s family filed the lawsuit in Houston to hold the state officials, they said, are responsible for Bland’s death. She died 3 days later “while under the custody and control of Waller County Jail”, the original petition says. We don’t have the ligature.

“We, not as Anonymous but as citizens of the United States, are exhausted of the cycle of murders and coverups made by police departments across the nation”, the group’s webpage reads. “I have many people around me who are raging, but we’ve got to channel this the right way”. “We don’t get the full toxicology report”. The family doubts the official law enforcement narrative and hopes the lawsuit will provide answers they are desperately seeking.

But a flurry of conspiracy theories rose in the wake of her death as her family and activists questioned why a woman with seemingly promising prospects would choose to take her own life.

The preliminary autopsy found that Bland used a garage bag to asphyxiate herself. A confrontation ensued as Encinia ordered Bland to put out her cigarette, and widely viewed dashboard footage shows Encinia forcefully removing the woman from her vehicle while moments later, off-screen, Bland can be heard condemning the cop for slamming her to the ground and hitting her head, saying she suffers from seizures.

“This family is frustrated because we don’t feel that has happened”, Lambert said. It seeks unspecified damages, but the Bland family’s attorney sums up its true goal like this.

The suit also says her jailers did not do enough to protect her. “Brian Encinia falsified an allegation of assault on a public servant against Sandra Bland for purposes of taking her into custody”, the suit says.

Larry Simmons, an attorney for Waller County, said the county would soon file a response to the lawsuit “and our court filings will clearly articulate the county’s legal position in this matter”.

Encinia has also been placed in an administrative job since he arrested Bland.

In addition to Encinia, the suit, which was filed in Houston, names the Texas Department of Public Safety, Waller County, the county’s sheriff’s department and two jailers as defendants.