Texas Grand Jury Won’t Indict in Sandra Bland Death

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.

Bland was arrested by Texas state trooper Brian Encina on July 10 after being stopped for an improper lane change. She was in jail three days prior to her death. The official story is that she allegedly used a plastic bag to hang herself. “We are unfortunately disappointed by the fact that our suspicions regarding this sham of a process have come to fruition”, he said.

Bland’s mother, Geneva Reed-Veal, said she wants to see all the evidence and is frustrated by delays in the case. The family criticized the grand jury proceedings in Waller County, Texas.

The 28-year-old African-American was arrested after a confrontation with a policeman who had pulled her auto over.

In late July, authorities released hours of jail video in an effort to knock down the idea that Bland was dead before she was brought to jail. County officials said they themselves received death threats. In Texas, her death also led to a statewide inquiry into the problem of suicide in county jails and how to solve the problem.

He explained that the federal lawsuit filed by the Bland family alleges that the county and their employees were negligent in their evaluation of Bland when at the jail; it does not assert there was a homicide.

Mr Mathis has said there is nothing in that investigation “that shows anything happened but she killed herself”.

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. Until the grand jury reaches a decision on Encinia, he remains out of the field, but is still with the Department of Public Safety.

Brandon Wood, executive director of the Texas Commission on Jail Standards, told the paper that the thorough screening gauges the risk of inmate suicide and helps identify medical and mental impairments. State lawyers have asked a judge to dismiss the lawsuit.

“We are not going to allow what they have done in a limited, secret capacity to prevent us from doing what we need to do to get answers for the family”, Bland family attorney Cannon Lambert said to KPRC, a CNN affiliate.

Ms Bland’s family has alleged Mr Encinia falsified an assault allegation to take her into custody.

Officials previously concluded Bland’s autopsy showed no evidence of homicide. Whether the arrests and aggressive treatment of Sandra Bland and Freddie Gray will turn out to be criminal, they were clearly unnecessary, and that is what makes both their deaths so tragic. I want all of you to know Sandy was more than a hashtag. “They found that he violated internal procedures, the Department’s courtesy policy basically”, Smith says. The situation escalated after Bland refused to put out a cigarette per the officer’s instructions.