Sandra Bland's Former Jailer Admits Falsifying Records

By teleSUR

23 JULY 16

A year after Sandra Bland was arrested after a routine traffic stop in Texas, new details appear about the role of the police in her death.

U.S. police officer admitted on Friday to falsifying Sandra Bland’s prison records, after she was arrested and found dead inside a cell in Texas last year, according Bland's family lawyer.

Cannon Lambert, a lawyer for Bland’s mother, said a Waller County Jail policeman in charge of checking up on Bland had lied on prison records.

The officer said under oath and written on the report that he had seen Bland an hour before she died, which in fact was not true.

Bland, a 28-year-old Black woman, was pulled over in Texas on July 10, 2015 for failing to signal a lane change. Officer Brian Encinia alleged Bland assaulted him and that why was he arrested her.

The Black activist, who fought against police brutality, was given a US$500 bail, and on July 13, was found hanging in her cell. Police called her death a suicide, but friends and family protested saying she was killed.

Due to public outcry and the circumstances of her death, the district attorney in Texas announced that Bland’s death would be investigated as a murder.

Officer Encinia was placed on administrative duty and later charged with perjury after he lied about the reason he pulled Bland out of her car for an action that only required a written warrant.

A grand jury in Texas announced in December that no officer will be indicted over the death of Sandra Bland.

The circumstances around her death became part of the Say Her Name campaign which protests the deaths of Black women at the hands of law enforcement in the U.S.