the family just sued the arresting officer today
Sandra Bland's family files civil rights lawsuit in push for answers
Sandra Bland's family files civil rights lawsuit in push for answers
The family of Sandra Bland has filed a civil rights lawsuit against the state trooper who arrested her, and against other officials they believe contributed to her death in a small-town Texas jail on 13 July.
The suit, filed on Tuesday, claims that Bland wrongfully died. “Her constitutional rights were violated,” Cannon Lambert, the family’s attorney, said. The legal action is an attempt to force more transparency from officials, he said.
“This family has been searching for answers for three weeks now,” Lambert said. “The number one question is: what happened to Sandra Bland? Unfortunately, we’re not in a position where we can get answers right now.”
At a press conference in Houston announcing the lawsuit, Lambert called for the trooper, Brian Encinia, to be fired and for the US Department of Justice to mount an investigation. “He is still employed and it doesn’t make sense,” Lambert said.
The Counted: people killed by police in the United States in 2015 – interactive
The Guardian is counting the people killed by US law enforcement agencies this year. Read their stories and contribute to our ongoing, crowdsourced project
Read more
Encinia, was placed on desk duty for alleged violations of Texas department of public safety protocol, pending an ongoing investigation into his conduct.
Dashcam footage showed the 30-year-old aiming a Taser at Bland and saying “I will light you up” after she questioned his order to put out a cigarette during the encounter, which took place when she was pulled over for failing to signal a lane change in Waller County, near Houston, on 10 July.
A physical altercation in which Bland can be heard complaining that she has been slammed to the ground and is in pain then takes place off camera.
The lawsuit accuses Encinia of wrestling Bland to the ground, slamming her head down, kneeling on her then falsifying an allegation of assault “for purposes of taking her into custody”. It claims that he assaulted her and “demonstrated a deliberate indifference to and conscious disregard for the constitutional rights and safety of Sandra Bland”.
“He could be relieved from his responsibilities,” Lambert said. “Look at Cincinnati [where an officer was fired and charged with murder last week after shooting a man to death during a traffic stop]. Fast, bold, decisive action … it’s about holding those folks accountable. [Bland’s relatives] don’t want to see this sort of thing happen again to another family.”
The 28-year-old was booked into the county jail for alleged assault of a public servant. She was found dead in her cell three days later. The autopsy report classified her death as suicide by hanging. Officials said she used a plastic trash bag to hang herself.
Sandra Bland: suspicion and mistrust flourish amid official inconsistencies
Read more
However, the family and many people on social media have questioned that version of events, believing she had no reason to end her life. She lived in the Chicago area and had just arrived in Waller County for a job interview that proved successful.
Among the defendants named in the 46-page federal suit, which has Bland’s mother, Geneva Reed-Veal, as the plaintiff, are two Waller County sheriff’s office employees, Elsa Magnus and Oscar Prudente. They were involved in screening Bland for possible mental health issues when she arrived at the jail.
The lawsuit says that despite Bland telling jailers that she had made a suicide attempt last year, she was placed alone in a cell “with a variety of inappropriate items … including a large garbage can, garbage bags, exposed beams, cords and other items”.
It also accuses jail workers of failing to appropriately respond “when Sandra Bland did not eat the meals provided to her” and “when Sandra Bland had bouts of uncontrollable crying”, and not allowing her to contact family and friends by telephone from 12-13 July.
After Bland’s death, the Texas commission on jail standards, a state agency, found the facility to be in non-compliance with minimum standards during an inspection. The commission citinged inadequate mental health training and a failure to check on inmates face-to-face at least once an hour.
The piecemeal release of information from law enforcement, apparent mistakes – such as the failure of jailers to place Bland on suicide watch despite several answers relating to depression and a past suicide attempt she provided in a mental health questionnaire – and the county’s history of racism has also bred doubts as to the reliability of official accounts.
In an attempt to quell some of the conspiracy theories, such as the notion that Bland was already dead when her jail mugshot was taken, officials last week released footage of her from inside the jail. But there was no camera inside her cell, they said.
Waller County officials have pledged a full and transparent investigation. The sheriff’s office has appointed a local attorney, Paul Looney, to oversee what he said would be a thorough and independent examination of the department’s procedures. The county’s district attorney, Elton Mathis, said last week that he had asked a group of independent attorneys for help reviewing evidence in the case, which may ultimately be presented to a grand jury for possible criminal charges.
Spokespersons for the Texas department of public safety and the sheriff’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Tuesday.
Lambert said the family is “aware of the possibility” that Bland did kill herself but that the independent autopsy they commissioned was still not finished because they are waiting to receive all the results of the original examination, including the complete toxicology report.
“We don’t even really know the time of death,” he said. “This family is a reasonable family, this family is a logical family, this family just wants to know what happened,” Lambert said.
Reed-Veal said she remained confident that her daughter did not “take herself out”. She sat next to Lambert with a copy of the Bible in front of her. “This is what’s keeping me from screaming, shouting and falling on the floor,” she said. “You won’t see me screaming and shouting – that’s not my MO – but I am angry … Justice is going to be served if the justice system will do what it’s supposed to do.”
Footage shows Bland making multiple phone calls from the jail as she seemingly tried to raise the $500 needed to post bail. The amount was set on the day after her arrest. Sharon Cooper, one of Bland’s sisters, said at the news conference that there was “a communication issue at the jail” which prevented the bond from being paid quickly.
“We had the money, just so we’re clear,” Cooper said. “We were expecting to get a phone call [saying she was out], and the next phone call that we did receive was that she was dead from an alleged suicide.”
Regardless of how she died, Cooper said, the focus should be on the trooper’s failure to deescalate the confrontation at the traffic stop.
“What remains a constant is that she should not have been [imprisoned] in the first place,” she said. “On her way to get groceries to stock her refrigerator on a Friday afternoon, she ends up jailed. She ends up dying in police custody.”
Sandra Bland's family files civil rights lawsuit in push for answers
Sandra Bland's family files civil rights lawsuit in push for answers
The family of Sandra Bland has filed a civil rights lawsuit against the state trooper who arrested her, and against other officials they believe contributed to her death in a small-town Texas jail on 13 July.
The suit, filed on Tuesday, claims that Bland wrongfully died. “Her constitutional rights were violated,” Cannon Lambert, the family’s attorney, said. The legal action is an attempt to force more transparency from officials, he said.
“This family has been searching for answers for three weeks now,” Lambert said. “The number one question is: what happened to Sandra Bland? Unfortunately, we’re not in a position where we can get answers right now.”
At a press conference in Houston announcing the lawsuit, Lambert called for the trooper, Brian Encinia, to be fired and for the US Department of Justice to mount an investigation. “He is still employed and it doesn’t make sense,” Lambert said.
The Counted: people killed by police in the United States in 2015 – interactive
The Guardian is counting the people killed by US law enforcement agencies this year. Read their stories and contribute to our ongoing, crowdsourced project
Read more
Encinia, was placed on desk duty for alleged violations of Texas department of public safety protocol, pending an ongoing investigation into his conduct.
Dashcam footage showed the 30-year-old aiming a Taser at Bland and saying “I will light you up” after she questioned his order to put out a cigarette during the encounter, which took place when she was pulled over for failing to signal a lane change in Waller County, near Houston, on 10 July.
A physical altercation in which Bland can be heard complaining that she has been slammed to the ground and is in pain then takes place off camera.
The lawsuit accuses Encinia of wrestling Bland to the ground, slamming her head down, kneeling on her then falsifying an allegation of assault “for purposes of taking her into custody”. It claims that he assaulted her and “demonstrated a deliberate indifference to and conscious disregard for the constitutional rights and safety of Sandra Bland”.
“He could be relieved from his responsibilities,” Lambert said. “Look at Cincinnati [where an officer was fired and charged with murder last week after shooting a man to death during a traffic stop]. Fast, bold, decisive action … it’s about holding those folks accountable. [Bland’s relatives] don’t want to see this sort of thing happen again to another family.”
The 28-year-old was booked into the county jail for alleged assault of a public servant. She was found dead in her cell three days later. The autopsy report classified her death as suicide by hanging. Officials said she used a plastic trash bag to hang herself.
Sandra Bland: suspicion and mistrust flourish amid official inconsistencies
Read more
However, the family and many people on social media have questioned that version of events, believing she had no reason to end her life. She lived in the Chicago area and had just arrived in Waller County for a job interview that proved successful.
Among the defendants named in the 46-page federal suit, which has Bland’s mother, Geneva Reed-Veal, as the plaintiff, are two Waller County sheriff’s office employees, Elsa Magnus and Oscar Prudente. They were involved in screening Bland for possible mental health issues when she arrived at the jail.
The lawsuit says that despite Bland telling jailers that she had made a suicide attempt last year, she was placed alone in a cell “with a variety of inappropriate items … including a large garbage can, garbage bags, exposed beams, cords and other items”.
It also accuses jail workers of failing to appropriately respond “when Sandra Bland did not eat the meals provided to her” and “when Sandra Bland had bouts of uncontrollable crying”, and not allowing her to contact family and friends by telephone from 12-13 July.
After Bland’s death, the Texas commission on jail standards, a state agency, found the facility to be in non-compliance with minimum standards during an inspection. The commission citinged inadequate mental health training and a failure to check on inmates face-to-face at least once an hour.
The piecemeal release of information from law enforcement, apparent mistakes – such as the failure of jailers to place Bland on suicide watch despite several answers relating to depression and a past suicide attempt she provided in a mental health questionnaire – and the county’s history of racism has also bred doubts as to the reliability of official accounts.
In an attempt to quell some of the conspiracy theories, such as the notion that Bland was already dead when her jail mugshot was taken, officials last week released footage of her from inside the jail. But there was no camera inside her cell, they said.
Waller County officials have pledged a full and transparent investigation. The sheriff’s office has appointed a local attorney, Paul Looney, to oversee what he said would be a thorough and independent examination of the department’s procedures. The county’s district attorney, Elton Mathis, said last week that he had asked a group of independent attorneys for help reviewing evidence in the case, which may ultimately be presented to a grand jury for possible criminal charges.
Spokespersons for the Texas department of public safety and the sheriff’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Tuesday.
Lambert said the family is “aware of the possibility” that Bland did kill herself but that the independent autopsy they commissioned was still not finished because they are waiting to receive all the results of the original examination, including the complete toxicology report.
“We don’t even really know the time of death,” he said. “This family is a reasonable family, this family is a logical family, this family just wants to know what happened,” Lambert said.
Reed-Veal said she remained confident that her daughter did not “take herself out”. She sat next to Lambert with a copy of the Bible in front of her. “This is what’s keeping me from screaming, shouting and falling on the floor,” she said. “You won’t see me screaming and shouting – that’s not my MO – but I am angry … Justice is going to be served if the justice system will do what it’s supposed to do.”
Footage shows Bland making multiple phone calls from the jail as she seemingly tried to raise the $500 needed to post bail. The amount was set on the day after her arrest. Sharon Cooper, one of Bland’s sisters, said at the news conference that there was “a communication issue at the jail” which prevented the bond from being paid quickly.
“We had the money, just so we’re clear,” Cooper said. “We were expecting to get a phone call [saying she was out], and the next phone call that we did receive was that she was dead from an alleged suicide.”
Regardless of how she died, Cooper said, the focus should be on the trooper’s failure to deescalate the confrontation at the traffic stop.
“What remains a constant is that she should not have been [imprisoned] in the first place,” she said. “On her way to get groceries to stock her refrigerator on a Friday afternoon, she ends up jailed. She ends up dying in police custody.”
.... but back on topic, fukk what that guy has to say, the cops killed sandra bland