Texas Grand Jurors Decide Not To Indict Anyone In Sandra Bland Death

On July 10, Bland was driving from IL to her alma mater, Prairie View A&M University, where she had gotten a new job, when she was pulled over by a state trooper for failing to use a turn signal in Prairie View, northwest of Houston.

The 28-year-old from Chicago had been arrested three days prior to her death, for allegedly assaulting highway patrolman Encinia after being pulled over for a minor traffic violation.

Bland’s mother, Geneva Reed-Veal, said she wants to see all the evidence and is frustrated by delays in the case.

In August, the family of Sandra Bland filed a wrongful death suit against a Texas trooper, a sheriff’s office and her jailers, accusing them of being responsible for her hanging.

The event Tuesday in Hempstead was organized by Houston activist Deric Muhammad, who says he was disappointed but not surprised by the outcome.

Bland was then held in a Waller County jail for three days, unable to come up with the $500 bail.

The Vermont senator issued a brief statement Monday night after a Texas grand jury declined to indict any of the sheriff’s officials or jailers for their treatment of Bland, who was black.

“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 said. If that. She should never have been taken from her auto in the first place, and her blood is on Encina’s hands even if she did commit suicide, which I don’t trust for a moment.

“We have absolutely no confidence in what we believe is a sham proceeding”, said one of their lawyers, Larry Rogers.

Bland reportedly confessed to jailers that she had attempted to commit suicide in the past, leading some to question why these revelations did not prompt a suicide watch.

The grand jury will reconvene in January, however, to consider if there should be charges in her arrest, which was caught on video and sparked an uproar, according to the prosecutor. County officials say Bland was treated well in jail and produced documents showing that she gave jail workers inconsistent information about whether she was suicidal.

Ms Bland’s sister Shante Needham has said Sandra had called her from jail, saying she did not know why she had been arrested and that an officer had possibly broken her arm.

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. He asked her to get out of the auto, she refused, and he tried to yank her out.

After the hearing, that lasted a little more than an hour, Judge Hittner set a trial date for January 23, 2017, as it relates to the lawsuit filed by the family of Sandra Bland. “The idea for that is to allow police to control a potentially risky situation”.