Police release video from outside Sandra Bland's jail cell

By Fusion Staff  |  July 21, 2015 | 12:59am
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Police are in the process of handing out video showing footage of Sandra Bland’s jail cell before and after her alleged suicide as a result of “self-inflicted asphyxiation” by a plastic garbage bag, according to a press conference held by Texas’ Waller County Sheriff’s office. According to authorities, officers walked by the cell at 7:05 p.m. on July 13 and noted Bland was in good health. When they checked a short time later, they found Bland dead.

The dash cam video of the arrest of Bland won’t be released until Tuesday. Bland’s friends and family, in recent days, have contested the police report that Bland committed suicide in the jail cell.

Because Bland’s original arrest came on a charge of assaulting a public servant, the dash cam video would theoretically provide proof of whether the original arrest was justified in the first place. Pastors connected to the family have seen the video and have said it shows Bland showed no aggression, according to ABC Chicago.

“We are imploring and begging that Loretta Lynch will in fact take this case, not out of the county but out of the hands of the state of Texas,” said Rev. Jamal Harrison Bryant of Empowerment Temple Baltimore.

https://twitter.com/ShaunKing/status/623274522163171329

Elton Mathis, the Waller County district attorney, said that Bland’s death is being investigated as a murder case and that the traffic stop was not routine, according to the Los Angeles Times.

“It was not a model traffic stop and it was not a model person that was stopped,” he said.

According to a tweet by Leah Binkovich, a reporter at the Houston Chronicle, Brian Cattrell of the Waller County Sheriff’s Office said that Bland arrived at the jail with no injuries.

Michael Rosen is a reporter for Fusion based out of Oakland.

 
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