it shouldn't be too hard to narrow down the suspect list via who was clocked in that day.

I thought I read that somewhere.

[link:http://www.colorlines.com/articles/fbi-joins-investigation-sandra-bland’s-death|
Edit: For some reason the link breaks after I post it so its exactly within the parentheses "http://www.colorlines.com/articles/fbi-joins-investigation-sandra-bland’s-death"

to be used by local law enforcement.. before it was all about
her 'committing suicide'.

The suicide ruling by the medical examiner could be right and that could actually be what happened because we have no way to know what was going on in her mind at the time, hopefully the investigation by the varies authorities will be able to determine if it was murder though.

Sandra had just gotten a new job, was excited about her hew life, etc. and
did not have any of the usual indicators of being suicidal.

Lord only knows what she went through though, by the time it happened.

and I should know, I never have told mine.

this world and it wouldnt shock me in the least if it was to turn out that she was murdered.

You got that right IMO.

will looking over the shoulder of the investigators.

big time. The fox guarding the chicken coop.

Sheriff in Texas where Sandra Bland died in custody previously fired for racism, brutality

The sheriff of the Waller County in which Bland’s alma mater Prairie View A&M University is located, and where Bland had just been hired at a few days ago, has been fired from his previous police job amid accusations of racism and brutality and disrespect to black children. According to Shaun King of the Daily Kos:

“Sheriff (Glenn) Smith was fired from a previous job as police chief in 2008 after several allegations that he and members of his department had engaged in racially biased behavior and police brutality,” the Kos reported.

The Houston Chronicle and at TV reporter both corroborate the Daily Kos’ account that Sheriff Glenn Smith was fired by the Hempstead City Council after several allegations of police misconduct, even though “not all of which involved racial issues.”

http://newpittsburghcourieronline.com/2015/07/18/sheriff-in-texas-where-sandra-bland-died-in-custody-previously-fired-for-racism-brutality/

It just keeps getting more and more messed up.

A DWB that ends up with a dead person in a jail cell needs to be investigated from every angle, starting out with the illegal DWB.

Why should I care? Out of control cops threaten us all, that's why. They're acting more and more like a foreign army of occupation.

It has to stop. This is a good place for them to be stopped.

It's just a shame they weren't stopped before so many have been killed.

In other words, it's not immediately assumed that a death was caused by suicide. It has to be proved to be true.

whether in civil or criminal liability.

There is a legal presumption against suicide unless it's so obvious (e.g., body hanging in a noose, toxicology results, opened veins, etc.)

per that article. The DA also says she was extremely combative during the stop and "not a model person", that's kind of insensitive.

The cop is the one who isn't a model person. Of course a right wing Texas DA (redundant, I know) isn't ever going to blame a cop for anything.

write "combative"

They do not think they are lying, because they are not talking about humans like they are.

than on the part of the cops than it would be of her being suicidal.

in he back, bullying her.

People will try to use it against her character or skew people's perception of the entire thing.

window. Hopefully that is on the dash camera.

Mike Brown through his window?

and may not have taken the harassment in the meek and submissive manner that cops tend to demand.

I'd be willing to bet that her 'combativeness' was strictly verbal, at least until they started getting physical with her.

It will be interesting to see the new footage.

Saw she was with black lives matter and so they nipped into her cell and choked her.

vs with a bag?

If this was a murder - I would expect that she had probably quit breathing by the time whomever tried to set it up to look like a suicide acted. And if her blood was no longer pumping the bag would have made marks but without the bruising one would normally see, I think.

I sure hope they get the body. I read last night the family attorney had still not been given a copy of the report, which gives them time to change things

her family has arranged for an independent autopsy.

will walk scott free. Guaranteed. There was no gun, no drugs, no criminal complaints against her so now she was combative and not a model prisoner. The fix is in. #Black Lives Matter please keep it up with our nominees. Sandra Bland and her family deserve that. No second independent autopsy yet. Family really does not know anything except their daughter is dead after entering the waller texas jail cell. These pigs will walk.

And quit attacking their natural allies in the Democratic party. Is this too hard to understand?

Last edited Tue Jul 21, 2015, 05:25 PM - Edit history (1)

right #BLACK LIVES MATTER.... kick some!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Who can help now, rather than wait for who knows how many names added to the list when one of those "candidates" takes office in two years.
Why the hell was she is jail for 3 days?!!

politics in america is governed by the 1% regardless of the POTUS(figurehead). Obama or any POTUS and his justice dept can only do what the privileged money class will let them do. The privileged money class wants blacks, whites, middle rich and poor at each others throats. While we're doing that, they have freedom from real scrutiny and possible revolt. I've haven't been fooled by the hypocrisy of this nation since Lee Atwater-Nixon 'Southern Stategy'. That immediate start of the push back against civil and voting rights for POC that just recently got rescinded by their majority RW SCOTUS. MONEY rules the politicians who allegedly lead our nation. Period. All fucking politicians.

She was in jail for 3 days because she and her family were probably trying to raise bail. Given her outspokeness against racist like the ones that put her in that jail cell, she probably, through anger and tiredness said something that got those white people scared she was going to lift the rocks they lived under to national scrutiny. They either let her die because of a serious closed head wound to her head from being slammed to the ground by that coward pig calling himself a police officer or they just out right hung and killed her. If she complained about that headache she had, they purposefully denied her medical care. If they feared losing their white privilege to be able assault, abuse and perpetrate civil rights violations against a POC, she was dead also. And given the precedent set of the last three years in not convicting LEO's and citizens killing POC, the were not concerned with the consequence of their actions in killing her or just letting her die. Sandra Bland died because she ended up in the hands of americkkkan racists.

The fbi has forensic analysis being done on the camera footage too see if its authentic and nothing was erased.

in there and then "discovered" it later, after a time to decide how to muddy things up.

I just don't trust the powers to be in that area. They seem to be helpful to each other.

….I hope the family will have an autopsy that investigates more than how she died. They need to look for injuries, or worse, that may point to the reason for killing her——a cover-up scenario. That would go to provable motive, beyond racism, which is hard to prove in court.

both physically and psychologically, and she took her own life because of that, wouldn't that be murder also?

I think so

life. You don't call a bondsman to get you out on bail if you are planning to kill yourself. Makes no sense. That, and taking into consideration the racist past the place where she was incarcerated

beyond the one coroner saying it was suicide. Doesn't even sound like he did much of an exam, even of the alleged bag.

Kind of interesting - those kinds of folks assume anyone who looks like them thinks like them, so they get sloppy and careless. I don't think they expected this to go anywhere (seriously, even today) and I think when new people announced they were investigating it took them by surprise.

That may be how she gets justice, if at all. Poor replacement for her life.

said

last month (as a deposit). I am thinking that her car was full of things for cleaning and hanging up clothes, dishes and so much more. She probably paid a deposit for electricity and maybe cable TV service. Driving all the way back to a new job after going there days earlier for an interview, does not go with suicide. Many more things do not add up to suicide.

Wonder if cops made a bad judgment after comparing her driver's license address with her story of having a car full of electronic and such. I can just see in my mind, that she told them she was moving to their town and they decided that, no she was not, and killed her.

if she did take her own life, is it so much damage was done to her brain during the beating outside that somehow it altered her perception and caused her to become irrational to the point where she killed her self. But if those were the circumstances, then her state of mind would've been directly affected by the treatment she got and to me that sounds like murder just as much as if they had hanged her themselves. I'm just what if ing like you, but I do think that she was killed. Probably as a result of the head injury she sustained outside when they were roughing her up.

"I'm just what if ing like you, but I do think that she was killed. Probably as a result of the head injury she sustained outside when they were roughing her up."
I thought she died from asphyxiation due to a plastic bag over her head how did we go from there to her being killed by a blow to the head?

on another thread. it made sense. i will believe the asphyxia when it is confirmed in independent autopsy.

As for the independent autopsy, sure go for it.

that I don't think she killed her self. I don't believe the police account of what happened. And I don't necessarily believe a corner who tends to work with the police and the DA.

noise must be made and attention paid.

Not going to get into it all (it's in the news), but this case looks like a tragic, brutal slam-dunk to me.

For 1 or more Officers, Murder-1.


But, IMO, eventually, they'll probably get away with negligent homicide of something.


File this under:
No shit, Sherlock.

I am just honestly wondering because all I know from what little I have read on it is that she was arrested (apparently for no legitimate reason as the officer didnt have probable cause that from what I have heard) and was then put in a cell and later found dead I believe with a plastic bag over her head? So how is that circumstantial evidence of murder? Negligence, I can buy that I suppose but murder?

Last edited Tue Jul 21, 2015, 11:02 PM - Edit history (4)

I don't want to unduly influence someone who has, by their own words, read little about this well-covered case so far.

Once you have filled-in the information-blanks for yourself, you may differ, or agree, with me.

I just think the claimed suicide-by-hanging looks far less "spontaneous" than claimed.

During your readings, pay close attention to Sandra's background, as well as that of the main officer involved (the one who made the "Official Announcement&quot .
Also note why she was where she was (in Texas), what the charge she was arrested for,
and what her own family and friends say about the claims of "suicide".

Also note how quickly and severely the beat-down was imposed on her.

Once you have learned these things, for yourself, unless you have no internal
"BS-Meter" at all, you may at least find yourself becoming more skeptical of the Police claims.


These may help:

http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/21/us/texas-sandra-bland-jail-death-explain/index.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/sheriff-in-sandra-bland-case-was-fired-from-last-police-department-after-racism-allegations-10395101.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/sandra-bland-fbi-joins-probe-into-suspicious-circumstances-of-young-black-woman-found-dead-in-texas-police-cell-10396839.html

case so far she was arrested (still havent seen the dash cam as I keep forgetting to check to see if they released it today yet) and she was later found dead in her cell by what the examiner ruled was suicide.
Could one of the officers have killed her? Sure, just about anything is possible but its also possible that she had been thinking of committing suicide for years and her family just never knew, just like mine doesnt know.

Maybe somebody should know?


JMHO.

These local police departments directly reflect the views everyone living there. The culture of racism is well entrenched and cannot be changed from within. It must be forced to change by outside powers. This elected Sheriff is the prime example of leadership in that jail.



"In 2007, Smith was suspended for two weeks without pay by the city council, ordered to take anger management classes and placed on probation for six months after residents made allegations of racist behaviour against him and four other white officers following an arrest in which he swore at and manhandled a black suspect.

The Houston Chronicle reported that he was fired in March 2008, after more accusations of inappropriate conduct against the police department including humiliating strip-searches of young black people. Yet later that year the Republican was elected as Waller County’s sheriff. He was re-elected in November 2012, the same month James Howell, a 29-year-old inmate, was found hanged in a cell at the Waller County jail in an apparent suicide.

Smith was previously chief sheriff’s deputy in another area notorious for racial divisions, Sabine County in east Texas, on the Louisiana border. It attracted national attention in 1988 when three white former police officers were found guilty of beating a black inmate to death in the county jail.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jul/17/sandra-bland-alleged-suicide-waller-county-texas-racism

This does not smell right

Her family was trying to raise the funds that weekend.

$5000? There need to be laws against excessive force at traffic stops, for one, and also against stupid crazy bail amounts for these trumped up offenses.

am I wrong about that?

Also, the fact that her family didn't pay immediately doesn't square with her growing up in Napervile IL. Naperville is a very wealthy town in one of the richest counties in the nation (Dupage). She did not come from some poverty stricken area but one of the wealthiest areas in our nation so how come they didn't just bail her out on day 1?

Don't you just have to come up with 10% to get out? $500 for her to be released?

I don't have the answers here but this small detail keeps niggling at me.

Why didn't her family bail her out? She'd been a very outspoken advocate for BLM. Her family surely knew the dynamics of getting arrested in TX as a black woman. This part doesn't make sense to me.

Traffic violations like not signaling are not arrestable offenses.

that will be interesting, especially as the officer is now on administrative leave for "improprieties" during her arrest.

Thanks!

Probably easier for them to bring that up.

She had everything to live for.

As to motive, it could have been to avoid a lawsuit they saw coming.

Or she may have been murdered and had it swept under the rug all too easily.

We're long past the time that we need to deal with this, both as a racial issue and abuse of law enforcement powers.

Thanks for the thread, blogslut.

But this case needs to be investigated and overseen at all levels by the federal authorities. Given their extensive histories, it's a foregone conclusion what the outcome will be if the county sheriff's office and the county DA are left to their own devices.

I'm glad the FBI is involved. Hopefully the Bland family's attorney can persuade the DOJ to get on board as well.

so they hung her in the cell. just my theory. i believe she was murdered.

... is that Ms. Bland died as a result of the injuries inflicted by that racist psychopath cop when he smashed her head into the pavement over an utterly insignificant TURN SIGNAL VIOLATION?!!? But then, this DID take place within boundaries of the Anus of the Universe.

The Waller police force's blatant lies regarding the circumstances of her death are absurdly implausible. The woman was seriously injured, but denied any medical attention, and WHY would she have a garbage bag in the cell with her? When the TRUTH emerges, if it ever does, I'll bet we'll learn that these assholes panicked, and then staged this supposed "suicide." These cops are too stupid to even make up a good lie.

That poor woman.

Good thing that DA doesn't buy it.

The defense will ask on cross examination, "But didn't another autopsy find it was a suicide? Can you absolutely rule out the possibility of suicide?" If not, bye-bye case. If one medical examiner questions the suicide finding, the defense can bring in the first and ask, "Wasn't your initial finding suicide?"

"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the medical examiners can't even agree if a crime was committed here at all!"

Not impossible to prosecute, but the prosecutor will have to present proof beyond a reasonable doubt that it could not have been a suicide. Double ligature marks, impossible angles, other incapacitating injuries, something.

I know there are good and established procedures but for the good of the country we need to leave no stone unturned in getting to the bottom of this. Resources are not infinite but we have to establish that there is still some just here in America, so for this case let's proceed like they are.

Imo there's a critical point here. Above and beyond the issue of why she was even in that cell is that she was utterly at the mercy of the system while she was in it. Either we own up to our responsibility, or we take a huge hit to what we are as a nation.

The memory of this woman will haunt us if we don't do her justice in her death.

Is there any cop video for this? Any cell phone cameras?

How come no one has mentioned it is impossible to hold a plastic bag around your neck till your dead.Once you pass out your hand releases the grip around the base and air is allowed into the bag.

the ladies weight would easily tear open the bag if she was hanging from it .

The DA is quoted as saying they are investigating it "like" it was a murder investigation not "as" a murder investigation. Meaning they are bringing all resources to bear like it was a murder even though they maintain it looks like a suicide.

1) According to the Bland family lawyer, the incident escalated from a warning ticket for failing to signal to an arrest for assault on a public official and resisting arrest and ultimately Sandra's death by murder or suicide because Sandra refused a command to put out her cigarette. This was the pebble that started the avalanche. My question is, given the dangers of second hand smoke, is the cop legally allowed to order her to put out her smoke? Or was she within her legal rights to refuse the command?

I think we all could use an education on what is and is not legal for a cop to command. I wish the government would issue clear guidelines and educate the citizenry(especially the cops) so citizens and cops would know exactly where the line is between standing up for your rights in a legal fashion vs risking arrest for not cooperating. The feds should strictly enforce these regs against any cops crossing the line.

2) In the bystander video the cop is heard telling the filmer that he must leave. The filmer appears to be quite a distance from the scene as does not appear to be in any way obstructing the cops. I don't believe that was a legal command.Clear guidelines need to be issued and enforced clarifying citizens' rights to record police from a safe distance. Citizens and cops should all be educated by the fed gov so we all know the rules. Cops should be held accountable by the feds for violating the rights of bystanders to film police actions.

3) Why did the cop order Sandra out of the car? Was he arresting her? For what? Refusing to put out a cigarette? Is that legal? She ended up being arrested for resisting arrest and assault. What was she originally being arrested for when she resisted and was that arrest legal?

Where it was a common practice to detain black activists, and after days of interrogation, they "died of suicide"

Hardly grounds for suicide....definitely grounds for murder!

The evil of this group; the Texas DPS, The Sheriff and DA Mathis especially cannot be underestimated. She was killed once it was discovered she was an activist.

how many people have 'committed suicide' while in police custody. Had this woman not had a family looking out for her, she would be just another unhappy person who couldn't go on anymore.

sad and sickening...

and Hispanic.

help them herd the Jewish masses into the gas chambers. They were called "kapos." Or consider the Korean prison guards who were treated like shit by the Japanese during WW2, and so treated the POW's like even worse shit.

Blacks and other minorities can internalize the rules of a racist system the same as anyone else. If one's salary depends on them "believing something," it's amazing what a person will "believe."

Saul Alinsky warned of romanticizing the motives of the poor and downtrodden. Just because they were victimized, in no way means that they are incapable of victimizing others.

And they did because they knew she was a blm activist and had to be killed. They risked all just to choke her to death.

You don't seem have much faith in the independence, integrity or intelligence of black folk.

One of my brother in laws is a prison guard and so is my niece - both black. If I was to forward your post to them it would shock the fucking shit out of them and piss them off.

BTW this isn't nazi Germany. Black folk are not oppressed in the US. I know this from my life experiences.

But a lot of posters on this site would disagree with your observation that black folk are not oppressed in the US.

Your life experiences prove this?

Fascinating.

Do tell us how your life experiences prove this. I'm all ears.