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Sandra Bland: a history of a mystery
Other | Tuesday 28th July 2015 | Federica
Sandra Bland was a 28 year old, African American who had just moved across the USA to take up a new job, which she was very excited about. On July 10th, she was driving on University Drive, Prairie View, Texas, when she got pulled over by trooper Brian Encina for failure of signaling a lane change. The conversation, all recorded in a video released by the Texas police, heated up, until Sandra ended up on the floor, screaming and crying, handcuffs on her wrists.
Officer Encina arrested Sandra for assaulting a public servant. She was jailed in a single cell in Waller County Jail. Three days passed until Sandra was found dead by the patrols. Her death, which was made public one day after the body finding, was filed as suicide, but not everything was clear.
Sandra Bland was part of the Black Lives Matter campaign, and was also described as an activist in Chicago: she was a fighter, and a very-aware-of-her-rights one. When she was arrested, indeed, she kept asking why, and when she got no answer at all, except for taser-threats, claimed she would report this very illegal procedure right away.
Many doubts have arisen since Sandra's death, and a petition has been launched to demand an investigation on the case.
It has been pointed out that a lane change signalling failure hardly has any ground to end up in imprisonment, but even if it does, procedure is to be followed: two files emerged after Bland's death, one stating that she told the officer she had attempted suicide in the previous few months, the other plainly stating she answered 'no' to the same question.
If the first file is to be trusted, Bland should have never been put in a single cell, or left without strict patrol control, as she actually was. On the other hand, if she had never attempted suicide, and wasn't feeling depressed, a sudden self-killing istinct is hard to believe in an enthusiastic, fighter of a woman described both by people who met her, and visible in the video of her arrest.
A lot of questions still need an answer, but one thing is for sure: something is clearly wrong.
This is what Anonymous had to say.
In the end, this is what Sandra Bland had to say about black lives and their importance.
