Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders on Tuesday called for nation-wide reforms of the criminal justice system, after a grand jury decided not to indict anyone for the death of a black woman as she was held in custody in Texas.
“Sandra Bland should not have died while in police custody. There’s no doubt in my mind that she, like too many African-Americans who die in police custody, would be alive today if she were a white woman,” Sanders said in a statement. “My thoughts are with her family and loved ones tonight. We need to reform a very broken criminal justice system.”
Bland, a 28-year-old African-American woman, died in police custody in Texas after being held for three days after allegedly failing to use her turn signal. Officials say she committed suicide in her cell with a plastic bag, but her family says otherwise.
Sanders has been upping his efforts to reach the African-American vote, going so far as to release a criminal justice platform and meet with organizers from the Black Lives Matter movement. He also toured the site of Freddie Gray’s arrest in Baltimore earlier this month and appeared with rapper Killer Mike at a rally in Atlanta.
The family of Sandra Bland met with Sanders on Oct. 13, 2015, according to The Huffington Post.
