Civil Rights Activist Arrested At Traffic Stop, Found Dead In Jail

by Shante Wooten
Counter Current News
Jul. 17, 2015

Sandra Bland was a civil rights activist and advocate who was mysteriously found dead in jail after a bizarre traffic stop arrest.

Bland was found dead in a Texas jail just after being arrested for allegedly being “combative” during a routine traffic stop.

Now, her friends and family have launched a campaign that is calling out the police and questioning the authorities’ ruling of her jailhouse death as a suicide.

The ruling of a suicide is all the more ridiculous when you consider the facts that Sandra Bland was arrested on charges that she could have easily fought. He bond was set relatively low. Yet she was found dead Monday in her cell, not long before she would have likely been bailed out.

She had not been behind bars for any length of time, and it was unlikely that she would have remained behind bars for long. Why would she commit suicide?

It doesn’t make any sense to her friends and family either. Many of them believe this was a case of murder – even political assassination – plain and simple.

But the Waller County Sheriff’s Office claims that the 28-year-old died “from what appears to be self-inflicted asphyxiation,” adding that it is a “tragic incident.”

Bland, however, had recently moved to the area, and was due to start a new job Wednesday as a college outreach officer. The job was with her alma mater, Prairie View A&M University, and by all accounts she was very excited for her first day at work.

Suicide doesn’t fit with her situation in anyone’s mind but that of the police.

Waller County District Attorney Elton Mathis acknowledged some of this, saying “I will admit it is strange someone who had everything going for her would have taken her own life. That’s why it’s very important a thorough investigation is done and that we get a good picture of what Ms. Bland was going through the last four or five days of her life.

“If there was something nefarious, or if there was some foul play involved, we’ll get to the bottom of that,” Mathis added, in an interview with the local NBC station KPRC in Houston.

Calls for justice and demands for answers are now starting to circulate on social media, using the hashtags #JusticeForSandy and #WhatHappenedToSandyBland.

But so far, the mainstream media is not covering this on the national level.

That has led some to create an online petition calling for the Department of Justice to investigate this murder.

Tuesday’s autopsy listed Bland’s cause of death as being “classified as a suicide, with the cause of death (listed as) hanging,” according to Tricia Bentley, a spokeswoman for the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences.

Friday’s court records say that Bland was arrested and charged with assault on a public servant, a third-degree felony. Saturday her bond was set at $5,000, a figure her friends and family were working to raise.

“We’re required to check them every hour, 24/7,” Sheriff R. Glenn Smith acknowledged to NBC Chicago. “[On Monday] she was given breakfast and spoken to, at about 7 in the morning. At 8, she spoke to a supervisor on the intercom about making a phone call.”

“One of the female jailers went to the door to see if she wanted to go to the rec yard,” he added. “She hollered for help, they started CPR. And unfortunately, couldn’t revive her.”

Do you believe the police, or does something sound fishy about the circumstances surrounding her arrest and death?













All original InformationLiberation articles CC 4.0



About - Privacy Policy