#waller county
The Texas Sheriff Where Sandra Bland Died Was Previously Suspended for Racism
The head sheriff of Waller County, Texas, where 28-year-old Sandra Bland was allegedly found asphyxiatedin a jail cell on Monday, was fired from his job as Hempstead, Texas, police chief in 2008 following allegations of racism, according to the Houston Chronicle.
TheDaily Kos recovered old Chronicle reports on Thursday showing that in 2007, R. Glenn Smith, then police chief of Hempstead, was suspended for two weeks by the Hempstead City Council after they “[viewed] videotapes and [heard] allegations of racism from local residents against him and … four [other] officers.”
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Sandra Bland was stopped Friday by authorities in Waller County, Texas for a traffic violation. In a video of her arrest, while being forcibly held face down, Ms. Bland can clearly be heard saying to the officer, “You just slammed my head into the ground. Do you not even care about that?” As she’s being picked up off the ground and placed into the police vehicle, Ms. Bland can be heard again, this time thanking the person recording the video, saying, “Thank you for recording.”
Bland was arrested and booked on “assault of a public servant” charges.
A police statement says the following Monday morning Ms. Bland was released on a $5,000 bond, and was subsequently “found dead” by a female jailer who was “worried” about her recreation time. Waller County Sheriff Glenn Smith claims this was a case of self-inflicted asphyxiation. An autopsy performed Tuesday showed Bland’s death “has been classified as a suicide, with the cause of death (listed as) hanging,” according to Tricia Bentley, a spokeswoman for the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences in Houston.
Hanged. Suicide. A young 28-year old woman who was moving to Texas to begin working her dream job suddenly decided to commit suicide, supposedly because of a small traffic infraction?
Ms. Bland’s friends and family feel that the police’s story doesn’t add up. For one thing, the odd quickness with which everything seemed to escalate seems off. In a matter of 72 hours Bland went from being pulled over for a minor traffic violation, to being arrested for assaulting a cop, and then to killing herself, according to the police’s story. There’s also the fact that Bland is black, and Waller county has a history of discriminatory law enforcement behavior.
The police are lying again.
#WhatHappenedToSandyBland #JusticeForSandy #ALLBlackLivesMatter
The cop asked the guy recording in the video to leave right after they said ‘good, good’ while she was screaming at them for slamming her on the floor I feel sick
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DA promises ‘thorough’ investigation of Sandra Bland jail death
The death of activist Sandra Bland in a Texas jail cell is being investigated as murder, a district attorney has said. Police in Waller County said Bland had committed suicide, but her family considers that unlikely.
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