The family of Sandra Bland – the 28-year-old black woman found dead in her jail cell last month – is suing the Texas state trooper who arrested her in what started as a routine traffic stop, but took a tragic turn.
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Lambert said the family’s own autopsy has been delayed by missing information from authorities, and that information the family has received from law enforcement has been inconsistent. The confrontation got heated, he told her to get out of the auto, and arrested her. After three days in jail, she was found dead.
“This family is frustrated because we don’t feel that has happened”, Lambert said. The lawsuit filed It seeks a jury trial for unspecified damages.
Houston attorney Cannon Lambert joined Bland’s mother and other family members at a press conference on Tuesday morning to discuss the case.
“Mr Encinia is still employed, and it just doesn’t make sense that taxpayers will be paying for the type of service that he offered on July 10”. She added that the several written requests for those questions that the family and general public still have are being ignored.
The family of Sandra Bland is demanding accountability for the Illinois woman’s sudden death while in the custody of a Texas jail, filing a federal lawsuit on Tuesday, KHOU-TV reports. The excessively edited dash cam video of Bland’s interaction with Encinia and the department’s reluctancy to provide basic details of the alleged suicide have not played favorably into the hands of the officers involved either.
“We want a set of eyes that’s going to find what happened to Sandra Bland“, Lambert said.
At the same time, the Texas Department of Public Safety said that Encinia acted improperly in making the stop.
County and state officials have released findings of an autopsy, surveillance video showing Bland being booked into the jail, her jail intake records and other material.
“Step out, or I will remove you”, he said repeatedly, opening the driver’s door as she protested. “We’re not being told a thing – radio silence”, she said.
Bland’s mother asserts that the officer had been reprimanded for unprofessional conduct and that DPS “knew or should have known that Defendant Brian Encinia exhibited a pattern of escalating encounters with the public”.
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Reed-Veal’s lawsuit also alleged that jailers placed Bland in a cell with “inappropriate” items, including a garbage can, garbage bags, exposed beams and cords, and “failed to appropriately respond” when Bland didn’t eat food provided to her and experienced “bouts of uncontrollable crying”, according to the lawsuit.
