Waller County Jail death will be investigated as a homicide, sheriff says
The investigation into a woman’s hanging death on July 13 in the Waller County Jail, which a medical examiner ruled a suicide last week, will be treated like a homicide investigation, Waller County District Attorney Elton Mathis said at a news conference Monday.
Mathis said he made the determination after talking to the family of Sandra Bland and to those who saw her last, including a bail bondsman who was among the last to hear from her alive.
Bland, 28, was found dead July 13 in a jail cell, three days after she was pulled over by a Texas Department of Public Safety trooper for an improper lane change. Officials have said she used a plastic bag to hang herself.
The Harris County medical examiner’s officer ruled her death a hanging consistent with suicide.
“There are too many questions that need to be resolved. Ms. Bland’s family does make valid points. She did have a lot of things going on in her life for good,” Mathis said.
Capt. Brian Cantrell, head of the sheriff’s department criminal investigation division, said video from jail cameras shows no activity in the hallway leading to Bland’s cell for about 90 minutes until an officer goes to check on her. The officer looked through a window, made a “frantic call to the [jail] controller,” and ran back to the jail main area to summon help, he said.
The district attorney also said the dashboard video of the traffic stop in Prairie View that was retrieved from Trooper Brian Encinia’s patrol car would be released on Tuesday.
Mathis said the video showed that Bland was not “compliant” with the officer’s directions.
“Sandra Bland was very combative. It was not a model traffic stop. It was not a model person that was stopped,” Mathis said.
On Friday, DPS reassigned Encinia to desk duty, saying the dash cam video revealed violations of traffic stop procedures.
Multiple agencies, including the Texas Rangers and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, have announced investigations into her death.
A Prairie View A&M graduate, Bland had returned to take a temporary job with the school’s extension service, which was to have started on Aug. 3.
This includes material from The Associated Press.
This story was originally published July 20, 2015 at 8:56 PM with the headline "Waller County Jail death will be investigated as a homicide, sheriff says."