A Texas grand jury will not indict anyone in the case of Sandra Bland, who was found dead in her cell three days after allegedly failing to use her turn signal.
Bland – who officials in Waller County, Texas, say hanged herself with a plastic bag — was a 28-year-old African-American woman. Her death in police custody has raised questions of police brutality and race.
“After reviewing all the evidence in the death of Sandra Bland, a Waller grand jury did not return an indictment in the death of Bland, nor were any indictments returned against any employee of the Waller County Jail,” Darrell Jordan, a special prosecutor handling the case, said after the grand jury met for more than eight hours Monday.
The grand jury will reconvene in January to consider other indictments and discuss other aspects of the case, according to CNN.
Her family and other have continually questioned the account that she committed suicide.
“We are not going to allow what they have done in a limited, secret capacity to prevent us from doing what we need to do to get answers for the family,” Bland family attorney Cannon Lambert told CNN affiliate KPRC.
Her family has also questioned the grand jury system in Texas, saying the testimony should be open to the public.
“Right now, the biggest problem for me is the entire process,” said Bland’s mother, Geneva Read-Veal. “I simply can’t have faith in a system that’s not inclusive of my family that’s supposed to have the investigation.”
A video released by authorities in late July shows that Sandra Bland was not dead when she was brought to jail, something many were arguing. Waller County is northwest of Houston.
