However, Waller County said terms of the deal aren’t yet final.
Advertisement
Reports citing the family’s lawyer, Cannon Lambert, say the money will be paid by Waller County and the Texas Department of Public Safety. Bland’s mother, Geneva Reed-Veal, told the station any legislation passed which benefits Waller County must be named in her daughter’s honor. He also said the county “vigorously” denies any fault or wronging in Bland’s death. “We need to make sure that they are making change that will save lives”.
This lawsuit was settled for $1.9 million, an attorney for the Bland family told ABC 13, a news channel in Texas. “It was about all mothers who have lost their children unjustly to police brutality, to senseless gun violence”.
Officials said the tentative settlement still requires the approval of state officials and Waller County commissioners. The parties are still working through a few details.
Of the $1.9 million agreed to in the settlement, Waller County will be responsible for the bulk of it, $1.8 million, Lambert told WLS. Even so, it’s worth emphasizing just how unusual the nonfinancial aspects of the settlement agreement are.
The settlement includes compensation for Bland’s death as well as several changes to jail procedures in Waller County, Texas. “Although the settlement amount is confidential until approved, it does not involve the expenditure of any County funds, other than a modest $1,000 deductible.Once the settlement is final, the County will be issuing a formal press release”. A grand jury later decided no one would be indicted in connection with her death, and in August 2015 her family filed the federal wrongful death suit. After she failed to signal while changing lanes, state trooper Brian Encinia pulled her over. She was taken into custody on a charge of assaulting a public servant, but she was unable to immediately come up with the $500 bail, according to investigators.
The officer who stopped her, Brian Encinia, was sacked in March after he was indicted for perjury by a grand jury, in connection with statements he gave about the traffic stop, CNN reports. She screamed that the officer was about to break her wrists and complained that he knocked her head into the ground.
The case made national headlines as it was another in a string of deaths by African-Americans while interacting with police. Encinia, who was sacked from his job by the Texas Department of Public Safety, pleaded not guilty to a misdemeanor charge of perjury in March. He pleaded not guilty to the charges and has since been fired from DPS.
In an affidavit, Encinia’s said he removed Bland “from her vehicle to further conduct a safer traffic investigation”, but prosecutors said grand jurors in Waller County found that statement to be false.
Bland-a black woman from the Chicago-area who was moving to Prairie View for a job-was arrested following a contentious traffic stop during the summer of 2015 that was captured on video.
Advertisement
Three days later, Bland committed suicide by hanging herself with a trash bag while in the Waller County Jail.
