The authorities get lazy and sloppy in these sorts of situations and don't ever expect to be seriously questioned on their behavior or their explanations.

The whole thing stinks but it's business as usual in far too many places.

but I too was wondering how come she a garbage bag in her cell.

Something stinks about this story.

is this a totally bizarre unique case or have similar things happened in the past and who was involved?

not in a cell with someone on a suicide watch.

Have not seen the inside of a cell before, so perhaps am way off base.

AFAIK, police remove any and all
items which could be used to
cause personal harm or injury.

A plastic bag, especially one that large,
would NOT be in a holding cell if
properly administered.

I know for a fact that there wasn't a plastic bag in that cell. Several years ago, here in Texas at Rusk State Mental Hospital, a hospitalized inmate suffocated himself with a plastic bag.
There was a big deal about this and all plastic bags were removed from cells and rooms of people in custody of the state because the family of this man sued the state and won a lot of money. (Paper bags are used as trash liners in these instances).

I do know that because of it, plastic bags were no longer allowed to be used with people in custody. The reason I know this is because I worked in a hospital that held the prison contract for the state and these guidelines were instituted immediately for all hospitalized inmates.

https://www.hop-law.com/texas-supreme-court-examines-whether-state-mental-hospital-can-be-liable-for-patients-death-by-asphyxiation-from-plastic-bag/
>>>>>snip
Travis Black was a psychiatric patient in Rusk State Hospital when he was found unconscious with a plastic bag over his head. Efforts to resuscitate him were unsuccessful and he died. An autopsy determined Travis died of asphyxiation and concluded that he committed suicide.

His parents, the Blacks, sued Rusk State Hospital alleging, in part, that the hospital was negligent by providing or allowing Travis access to a plastic bag that was inherently dangerous in an inpatient psychiatric setting. On appeal, the hospital argued the case should be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction because the claims did not fit within any waiver of the hospital’s immunity from suit.

As relevant to the parent’s claim against the hospital, the Tort Claim Act provides that a governmental unit is liable for “personal injury and death so caused by a condition or use of tangible personal or real property if the governmental unit would, were it a private person, be liable to the claimant according to Texas law.” TEX.CIV. PRAC. &REM.CODE § 101.021(2).

The Blacks alleged that the Hospital’s negligent in providing, furnishing, or allowing Travis to access the plastic bag involved a use or condition of tangible personal property. The Blacks emphasized that the Hospital’s policy classified the plastic bag as inherently dangerous in an inpatient psychiatric setting
- See more at: https://www.hop-law.com/texas-supreme-court-examines-whether-state-mental-hospital-can-be-liable-for-patients-death-by-asphyxiation-from-plastic-bag/#sthash.etMnb3At.dpuf

This is crucial information.

but did work in a psych hospital years ago. It was a private facility (pretty nice place overall) but there were so many restrictions on what could be in rooms. The one time there was an actual adult suicide it was outside the building.

I think it was pnwmom (hope I spelled that correctly) who suggested that perhaps Sandra actually died from head injuries (cop beating on a woman with epilepsy) - and then they tried to cover it up. That sounds much more plausible than anything else I've seen about this story.

While state agencies may have banned the use of plastic bags, a county agency may not have, unless a state law was passed.

I find the whole jail thing odd. I can't imagine why she would commit suicide. Equally I can't imagine why one of the police officer's would murder her either.

And she wasn't on suicide watch. One report said she judged to be only at "moderate risk". I haven't heard of a second report.

Make it look like suicide and no one gets sued. She had already told the cop she was going to sue them. Just a theory, mind you.

It makes zero sense to risk a murder conviction when it would either be the County, County Sheriff's Department or their insurance company paying out the money, not an individual officer.

It also makes zero sense for a rational adult to commit suicide over something so minor.

I'm guessing at this point there is missing information.

and now that there is another autopsy, the Texas PD are saying their autopsy was botched. A few days ago the story was:

found that in that country over half of what people would call "hangings" occurred with the deceased's feet able to touch the floor. They'd stand and slump, they' kneel, or even be mostly recumbent.

Different jurisdictions call "hanging" in different situations by different names. The medical effects of a hanging with your feet off the ground usually include bruising (I recently read) and possible other damage to the neck from the impulse sustained as the body's free fall is broken. But if you slump and suffocate that way, all you typically get is suffocation without the additional injuries. You also don't need to support the person's full weight in those cases--the floor's providing some supporting force, after all, to reduce the net force that the rope or shoelaces or trashbag would have to counter.

The Bland family can and should sue big time on this. The whole agency in this county has bungled this in so many ways. Last night it was the DA's office releasing parts of the autopsy then other parts of their office saying they messed up the autopsy and need the body back. But the biggest thing, the release of the police paper work. They knew according to what was released that she had attempted suicide in the past. Why was there a garbage bag in her cell?

This whole thing is so wrong. This young lady should still be alive. She should have never been arrested in the first place.

We really have become a police state. Sandra Bland could have very easily been me. I smoke and I have a bad habit of smoking in my car. I also have a bad habit of speaking my mind and I know what my rights are. I also have done and still do the same traffic violation that she was arrested for. I probably would have responded the exact same way as she did. This whole thing is crazy.


But I hope the family gets tons of money from the county and the state from this.

I thought I heard on tv that she was on suicide watch but was mistaken. She was not. And she was not thought to be at risk by jailers.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/22/sandra-bland-suicide_n_7852002.html

The entire thing smells rotten.

Last edited Thu Jul 23, 2015, 09:47 AM - Edit history (1)

It has multiple beds and a huge, industrial size trash can. It was like one you might use outside, and not what you'd normally see inside a building. Maybe with the shoddy practices in that jail the prisoners needed a giant trash can in their cell because no one came by regularly to clean or take out the trash.

Here's the link:

http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/short-take/video/dinner-untouched-inside-sandra-bells-jail-cell-488691779705


Take note of the height of toilet partition compared to the reporter standing next to it. Sandra Bland looked to be a tall woman and it doesn't seem possible that her feet couldn't touch the floor which would have made hanging impossible.

do to harm myself. They locked that shit down.

Now, maybe DC police are more professional than Mayberry, TX. In fact, I guarantee they are. But this is absolute basic level stuff.

So...where did the trash bag she allegedly hang herself/suffocate herself come from?

I personally think the trashcan was a prop placed after they killed her.

In that same video it shows the toilet stall. In the video where the cop drags her out of the car, she looks quite a bit taller than he is, so I can't see how she could have possibly used that toilet stall to hang herself.

There appears to be no horizontal support structure, just the vertical metal piece attached to the ceiling where the side panels of the stall are attached. Even assuming she tied a plastic bag around her neck and stood up on the toilet, she would have had to lean far forward -- I don't think I do it, but she's taller so maybe she could -- to reach the right or left vertical metal post, then knot the other end of the bag tight with her neck snug against that post so she (maybe) couldn't touch the floor even when the plastic stretched after she jumped off the toilet.

Doesn't pass the smell test, yeah?

No jail I ever was in when I was a deputy in NC had them.

Then again, some states have far looser standards and some let every department do what they want. So some will make stupid mistakes like that.

It's quite irresponsible, and that more than anything else probably opens up the department to a civil suit from the family- her intake forms said she had previous issues with suicide attempts and they should have taken basic measures to keep the means of completing a suicide out of her hands while she was in their custody.

The presence of the bags in cells will be easy enough to verify by interviewing other inmates.

was stopped for expired registration one evening as we were driving home from having dinner (about 10:30). He was arrested, handcuffed and taken away and they left me standing on a dark road alone and told me the car could not be driven. I, of course, waited 10 minutes and drove a few blocks home. It was a relatively safe neighborhood, but still!

Next day he called and he was in a different town at our County Court House. When I picked him up he had to stop at a desk and get his things, including his belt and his shoelaces! I laughed at this, which was not popular. I can't imagine allowing him to have a plastic bag and I don't believe Sandra had one either. They took my boyfriend's shoelaces!

included the county jail. We never had plastic bags in the cells. You can suffocate yourself with them, you can ingest pieces of them, making you sick and getting a trip to the ER, you can tear them into strips and braid them which makes them strong enough to strangle someone else.

All trash was deposited in a can in the cell and it was emptied once a day by work detail with a deputy closely monitoring.

I know plenty of people who've been to jail, including myself, and there is nothing in a cell to make life easy, including a goddamn garbage can with a nice little bag in it.

Different jails have different policies.

Plus, if I was the FBI, I would ask to see video of a cell from on month before the incident, and see if trash cans were in the cells. Interview the janitor, all the guards and other prison inmates, and people who were arrested on minor charges there in the past month, so if there wasn't normally a trash can, it would be easy to find out.

So it is a huge trash can. The biggest one you can buy and in the picture it has a bag in it and it is right in the middle of the cell. So the cell was staged for the media but...

There is no reason for a can that big to be in there so why did they put it there?

One possible scenario: There are motion activated cameras in the hallways. There are people in other cells but that enormous trash can is big enough that they could kill Sandra Bland elsewhere in the jail complex and then put her body in the can, take it passed the cameras and witnesses into that cell and then at 9AM call 911 and declare that she hung herself in the cell.

The one problem I have with all these conspircy theories is it would take just about everybody in the prison to be in on it.

If there was never a trash can in the cell, and never a trash bag, and all the sudden they put one in, there are 75+ guards that know that is suspicious, as well as hundreds of inmates, who I assume the FBI will interview as well.

They can check camera footage from a week before this happened, and see if cells had plastic bags and trash cans.

Also, I'm assuming the arresting officer dropped her off and was never back inside the jail, and did not see her again. I don't think he could go up to a friend in the county jail and ask him to murder somebody to avoid getting written up for acting inappropiately. I can't see somebody agreeing to do that (and getting the IT guy in on it to erase the tape, and 100 other guards to lie about protocol.

I could see an injury sustained during the arrest or jail booking causing her death. That I could accept, but not a conspiricy to murder her.

with a pay phone etc...

How, even if she did have the bag, would she have managed this without the bag sliding off the room divider while her body was involuntarily thrashing about. They are solid half walls that separate the toilet part from the rest of the cell.