Sandra Annette Bland was a 28-year-old African-American woman who was found hanged in a jail cell in Waller County, Texas, on July 13, 2015, three days after being arrested during a traffic stop. Officials found her death to be a suicide. There were protests against her arrest, disputing the cause of death, and alleging racial violence against her.
Bland was pulled over for a traffic violation on July 10 by State Trooper Brian Encinia. The exchange escalated, resulting in Bland's arrest and a charge of assaulting a police officer. The arrest was partially recorded by Encinia's dashcam, a bystander's cell phone, and Bland's own cell phone. After authorities reviewed the dashcam footage, Encinia was placed on administrative leave for failing to follow proper traffic stop procedures.
Texas authorities and the FBI conducted an investigation into Bland's death and determined the Waller County jail did not follow required policies, including time checks on inmates and ensuring that employees had completed required mental health training.
In December 2015, a grand jury declined to indict the county sheriff and jail staff for a felony relating to Bland's death. The following month, Encinia was indicted for perjury for making false statements about the circumstances surrounding Bland's arrest, and he was subsequently fired by the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS). In September 2016, Bland's mother settled a wrongful death lawsuit against the county jail and police department for $1.9 million and some procedural changes. In June 2017, the perjury charge against Encinia was dropped in return for his agreement to permanently end his law enforcement career.
In 2019, Bland's cell phone video became available to the public and to Bland's family for the first time. The video was obtained and shown by Dallas news station WFAA. This video was not available during the civil trials.
Background
Sandra Bland
Sandra Annette Bland (February 7, 1987 – July 13, 2015) was from Naperville, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, and was one of five sisters. Bland attended Willowbrook High School in Villa Park, Illinois and graduated in 2005. She then attended Prairie View A&M University outside Hempstead in Waller County, Texas, where she was a member of the Sigma Gamma Rho sorority before graduating in 2009 with a degree in agriculture. At Prairie View, she was recruited as a summer counselor for three years, played in the marching band, and volunteered for a senior citizens advocacy group.
Bland returned to Illinois in 2009. She worked in administration for Cook's Direct, a food-service equipment supplier, a job she left shortly before her death. She had been due to start a temporary job on August 3, 2015, with Prairie View as a summer program associate.
In January 2015, Bland began posting videos about many subjects, including police mistreatment of African Americans. In one video post from April of the same year, she wrote, "In the news that we've seen as of late, you could stand there, surrender to the cops, and still be killed." She has been described as a civil rights activist in Chicago, and a part of the Black Lives Matter movement. Bland had at least ten previous traffic-related encounters with police in Illinois and Texas beginning in June 2004, and had been charged five times for driving without insurance, four times for speeding, and once each for driving while intoxicated and drug possession. In May 2010 Bland was charged with marijuana possession in Houston. She pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 30 days in the Harris County jail in September 2010 according to court records. She owed $7,579 in unpaid fines at the time of her death. In her last legal case her license was suspended for six months after pleading guilty to DUI. Her license was restored in November 2014.
Brian Encinia
Brian Encinia was 30 years old at the time of the incident, and is listed in Texas voter records as Hispanic. He graduated from Texas A&M University in 2008 with a degree in agricultural leadership and development.
Traffic stop
Encinia had a history of performing pretextual traffic stops, having issued 1,600 mostly minor tickets in less than 12 months, using the pretext of little-enforced minor infractions to then perform random searches in the hope of finding something criminal. He began following Bland in Prairie View, Texas on the afternoon of July 10, 2015, where he pulled her over on University Drive for failure to signal a lane change. In a series of events recorded by his dashcam, along with a bystander and Bland herself, Encinia spoke to Bland, and the interaction became heated; he told her to get out of the car, she refused, was threatened with a drawn Taser and the words "I will light you up", and exited the car. After they moved out of frame, he forced her on the ground, and arrested her.
In response to controversy over Bland's arrest and death, on July 21 the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) released dashcam footage of the arrest. Parts of the video appeared to be edited, with images of cars and people appearing or vanishing on the road, while the audio of Encinia's voice proceeded without interruption. A DPS spokesperson said that irregularities in the video resulted from technical issues that occurred when the video was posted. DPS then took down the problem video and replaced it with another version.
The footage shows that Encinia's tone and attitude change after he asks if Bland is irritated and she answers affirmatively. He initially wrote a routine traffic violation warning for Bland after she moved over but did not signal to let him pass since he was tailing her closely. After he returns to her car and speaks briefly to her again, he asks her to put out her cigarette. She responds, "Why do I have to put out a cigarette when I'm in my own car?" Encinia orders her to "get out of the car", and, when she repeatedly refuses to exit, he tells her she is under arrest. Bland repeatedly asks why she is under arrest, and Encinia responds, "I am giving you a lawful order." She refuses to leave her car, stating she is not under arrest as she is unaware of the reason and not obliged to. Encinia then opens her car door and tells her more than a dozen times to get out of the car before he tries to pull her out. After struggling, he draws his Taser and points it at Bland, shouting "I will light you up! Get out! Now!", at which point she exits her vehicle.
Once Bland is out of her car, the officer orders her to put down her cell phone and tells her she is going to jail. Bland continues to not follow the officer's orders. In the video, both Bland and the officer move to the passenger side of the vehicle and are no longer visible, while they continue to argue heatedly. Bland can be heard crying and screaming.
Bland's own 39-second video of part of the confrontation, which had been in possession of state investigators, was discovered in 2019 and aired by a Texas TV station. Bland's family and their lawyer in the civil lawsuit claim that the state had not given them this evidence. The Texas Department of Public Safety disagreed.
Eyewitness accounts
In a video recorded by a bystander, Bland is lying on the ground with Encinia and a female police officer above her. Bland says that she cannot hear, and states that the officer has slammed her head into the ground. She tells him that she is epileptic. This is confirmed by police dash-cam video footage, in which the officer responds "Good," after Bland informs him of her condition. In the video, Encinia orders the bystander to leave the area.
Sandra Bland also recorded the arrest on her own cell phone; that video became public in 2019, and was not part of the civil trial evidence.
Arrest
DPS stated that Bland was arrested because she kicked Encinia. She was charged with assaulting a public servant. DPS said that she "became argumentative and uncooperative" during the arrest. Officers took her to the Waller County Jail and placed her in a cell alone because they deemed her a high risk to others.
After her arrest, Bland told her sister that the arresting officer had pushed his knees into her back, and that she feared her arm was broken. A Houston television station states it obtained a voice message left by Bland after her arrest in which she asked, "How did switching lanes with no signal turn into all of this?"
Incarceration and death
Bland's bail was set at $5,000. According to a statement from the jail officials, she had been given multiple opportunities to find someone who could post bond including a man she was staying with in Texas who "ignored her calls". Her bondsman also made several attempts to secure bail. Her family later stated they were attempting to secure the 10 percent ($500) needed to secure her release.
On July 28, authorities released several hours of video showing Bland at various times during her jail stay, including arriving at the jail, having her mug shot taken, and making phone calls (see § Waller County Jail videos). They said the footage was being released to dispel rumors and conspiracy theories, including that she was dead before she arrived at the jail and that her mug shot was taken after her death. At a news conference, Waller County Judge Trey Duhon said that such rumors have resulted in death threats against county officials: "Because of some of the things that's gone out on social media, this county has been literally attacked." Duhon said the FBI was investigating the most serious threats.
Alexandria Pyle, an inmate held in the adjacent cell, later told the media that Bland seemed "sort of distraught", was very emotional, and was crying frequently. Pyle, who spoke to Bland through a tiny chute, said Bland was upset that her friend had not come to bail her out. Pyle stated that she never heard any loud noise or commotion that would indicate foul play in Bland's death.
Discovery by jailer
Police stated that at 6:30 a.m. on July 13, Bland refused breakfast, and a half-hour later told a jailer "I'm fine." According to Captain Brian Cantrell, about an hour after stating that she was fine, Bland asked via intercom how to make a phone call. Cantrell stated that Bland was informed she could use the phone in her cell with a PIN, but stated there was no record Bland made any call. Police stated that at 9:00 a.m., Bland was found "in a semi-standing position" hanging in her cell.
The next day, shortly after noon, police issued a statement that Bland had been found dead in her cell, and that they believed she had hanged herself. On July 20, one week after Bland's death, authorities released video from a motion-activated camera in the hallway outside Bland's cell. The video shows no movement in and out of the cell from 7:34 to 9:07 a.m., her discovery by a female officer at that time, and resuscitation procedures being performed on Bland's body.
Harris County autopsy
An autopsy conducted by the Harris County Institute of Forensic Science concluded that Bland died through asphyxiation, and classified her death as a suicide. Police stated that Bland had used a plastic garbage bag to hang herself. The autopsy report showed Bland had multiple abrasions on the right side of her back, slight abrasions on her wrists, and 25 to 30 healing, parallel cuts on her left forearm that predated her arrest.
Toxicology
An initial toxicology report released by the Harris County medical examiner's office found "a remarkably high concentration" of THC for someone who had been in jail for three days, leading to speculation that Bland may have had access to marijuana while in jail. Waller County assistant district attorney, Warren Diepraam said that it was more likely that Bland had ingested a very large amount of marijuana prior to her arrest. A toxicologist for the Tarrant County medical examiner's office agreed, indicating a THC level as high as Bland's suggests she "either had access to the drug in jail or she was a consistent user of the drug and her body had accumulated THC to the point that it was slowly releasing it over time." But he added: "I have never seen a report in the literature or from any other source of residual THC that high three days after someone stops using the drug." Other experts disputed the significance of a single test result from a sample taken after death, explaining that marijuana science is not well-developed and that county officials may have been exaggerating the importance of Bland's THC blood level, which Columbia University researcher Carl Hart said was similar to the baseline blood level of a heavy marijuana user.
Funeral
Bland's funeral was held on July 22 at DuPage African Methodist Episcopal Church in Lisle, Illinois.
Initial reactions
Calls for independent investigation
Family and friends called for an independent autopsy, and stated that it was unlikely Bland would have killed herself. Bland's family said that she was upbeat about the job she was about to begin for Texas A&M University at Prairie View.
In March, Bland posted a video to her Facebook page in which she said was suffering from "a little bit of depression as well as PTSD". Her sister said that Bland had no "medically diagnosed clinical depression", but had good and bad days. Cannon Lambert, the family's lawyer, stated that Bland's post in March gave little indication of her mindset around the time of her death.
A friend who spoke with Bland while she was in jail said she was upbeat despite the arrest: "It just makes no sense. Sandy was a soldier; she wasn't fazed about it."
Critical response and protests
In the two days after authorities announced her death, 31,000 people tweeted using the hashtag #SandraBland, and an online petition launched calling for an investigation of Bland's death. After three days, 200,000 people had tweeted her name.