Death of Sandra Bland a 'Murder Investigation'

The jail-cell death of Sandra Bland, the Naperville woman who was moving to Texas for a new job, will get a “thorough and exhaustive review” as a murder investigation, the district attorney said Monday evening at a news conference.

“There are many questions being raised in Waller County, the state of Texas, the country and around the world. It needs a thorough review. It will go to a grand jury,” said Waller County District Attorney Elton Mathis, according to NBC News. “Ms. Bland’s family did make valid points that she did have a lot of things going on in her life that were good.”

Mathis said the case is “being treated like a murder investigation.”

He said he made this decision after speaking with her family and the last person to see her alive, the bail bondsman, reports the Texas Tribune.

The Waller County Sheriff’s Department maintains Bland choked herself to death with a plastic trash bag in a jail cell three days after she was arrested during a traffic stop. Police threatened her with a Taser after she refused to get out of her car after she was stopped for a turn-signal violation on July 10, then an officer forcibly put her on the ground. Police claim Bland tried to kick the officer. A bystander recorded part of the incident on video. In the video, Bland can be heard to say her head was slammed into the ground.

Bland’s family, friends and fellow churchgoers at DuPage African Methodist Episcopal Church in Lisle, say the 28-year-old woman never would have killed herself, though she reportedly suffered from depression. She was moving to Texas for a new job at Prairie View A&M, her alma mater. Bland was also an activist, tracking and commenting on the deaths of blacks in police custody.

Also on Monday night, the sheriff’s department released a three-hour video that shows no one approached her cell in the 90 minutes before her body was found.

Waller County Sheriff’s Office Captain of Patrol Brian Cantrell, speaking at the same press conference as the district attorney, pointed out that Bland’s death already was ruled a suicide. A judge who saw her body in her cell said it looked like suicide to him, and the medical examiner concurred.

“I want to make clear that the death of Ms. Bland was a tragic incident — not one of criminal intent or a criminal act,” he said.

Cantrell said her feet were on the ground but she asphyxiated herself with the plastic trash bag. Her death was previously described as a hanging.

Mathis said the investigation will look into whether there was DNA or fingerprints other than Bland’s on the trash bag.

Reports the Texas Tribune:

Cantrell said Bland had no injuries when she came to the jail. He said she was placed in the cell after a deputy processed her arrest paperwork and read from a sheet of standard questions posed to inmates, asking her about her health, including her mental health.

“There were no reported injuries by Ms. Bland to jail staff and no medical treatment requested,” Cantrell said.

Following Bland’s death a week ago, the Texas Commission on Jail Standards reviewed the Waller County Jail’s logs and notified the sheriff’s office that the jail had violated minimum standards in two areas: providing staff training as it pertains to health services for inmates, and failing to follow rules regarding the observation of inmates once they are detained.

Her family has asked for an independent autopsy. The FBI and Texas Rangers are investigating her death. Earlier Monday, a group of two dozen civil rights activists, including a white minister who has been holding vigil at the sheriff’s office for a week, called for the U.S. Justice Department to take over the investigation.

“This is not a race war. This is a war on black lives,” said the Rev. Hannah Bonner, pastor of justice ministries at St. John’s United Methodist Church in Houston.

The sheriff’s office said a video will be released Tuesday from the squad-car dashboard camera that shows an irate and combative Bland.

The officer who took her into custody, Brian Encinia, has been suspended for violating department arrest policy. He joined the department in 2014. Prior to that, he was a firefighter, reports the Texas Tribune.

“This was not a suicide. This behind me was murder. All of America knows something is rotten,” said the Rev. Jamal Bryant, speaking at a news conference in front of the Waller County jail.