A USA police officer admitted on Friday to falsifying Sandra Bland’s prison records, after she was arrested and found dead inside a cell in Texas previous year, according Bland’s family lawyer.
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The Houston Chronicle reports that the lawyer for Sandra’s mom said the Waller County Jail guard told him this information under oath.
Larry Simmons, Waller County’s attorney, says the deposition testimony was taken out of context.
According to the Houston Chronicle, a source familiar with the state’s investigation into Bland’s death confirmed that special prosecutors were made aware of the falsified records.
She died in the Waller County Jail three days later.
The 28-year-old was in the middle of moving from Texas to the Chicago area when she was collared during a troubling traffic stop when she forgot to put on her turn signal. After a heated exchange with Texas Department of Public Safety trooper Brian Encinia, Bland was arrested for assaulting a public servant.
The Waller County Sheriff’s Office claimed Bland had died of self-induced asphyxiation, apparently by using a plastic bag, and an autopsy performed by the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences ruled her death a suicide.
The information has surfaced in the course of a wrongful death suit Reed-Veal launched against the county.
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According to the New York Daily News, a federal judge ordered mediation in the lawsuit Wednesday.
