Voicemail Shows Sandra Bland Was 'Angry,' Not Suicidal, Family Says
By aaroncynic in News on Jul 23, 2015 7:10PM
A newly-released voicemail from Sandra Bland, the woman whose perplexing death in a Texas jail cell has drawn national attention this week, shows a woman who was angry and baffled by her incarceration, but not suicidal, family and friends are telling authorities.
Bland, the 28-year-old African-American woman found dead in a jail cell in Waller County, Texas after being arrested during a traffic stop, said she was “at a loss for words” in a voice mail she left to a friend before she died.
"How did switching lanes with no signal turn into all of this, I don’t even know,” said Bland, in a message to a friend after her initial court appearance. It was one of three calls Bland made from the courthouse.
The message is just one of many new details to emerge in the suspicious jailhouse hanging of Bland. Earlier in the week, authorities released video from the jailhouse showing Bland’s body and medical personnel attending to her after she was found dead. Yesterday, authorities re-released dashboard camera video of the traffic stop which landed Bland in jail after inconsistencies in the initial video released led many to question whether it had been doctored.
Cannon Lambert, the Bland family attorney, said that the voicemail is further proof that she was not suicidal.
“We know for a certainty that before she went into that jail, she was ecstatic,” Lambert told CBS. “She had left messages with her loved ones and that just does not jive with someone who would take her own life.”
According to the New York Times, Waller County Sheriff R. Glenn Smith said that Bland had mentioned a previous suicide attempt during her processing interview. Smith said she had not been placed on suicide watch at the time because Bland said that she wasn’t depressed, but angry about her arrest.
Sharon Cooper, Bland’s sister, said that speculation surrounding Bland’s mental state was a distraction from the actions by police that led to her incarceration in the first place, and that she should have never been arrested during the stop.
“I simply feel like the officer was picking on her, and I believe that is petty," Cooper told CNN. In the dashcam video, Texas state trooper Brian Encinia can be seen attempting to forcibly pull Bland out of the car after she refuses to put out a cigarette. “I will light you up,” says Encinia, who later points a taser in her direction as he leads her to the side of the road. Later, after Bland tells the trooper she has epilepsy, he responds, “good.”
“At every step, he is participating in this escalation,” Charis Kubrin, a University of California, Irvine, professor told the New York Times. Kubrin, who studies race and justice, said that the officer’s actions were “out of step” to Bland’s infraction.
The legality of the officer’s request for Bland to put out her cigarette is dubious at best, for example. Attorney Margo Frasier, the police monitor for Austin, Texas, told the Washington Post she knew of no specific statute that existed requiring such a thing, and that it was unclear that it would have been a safety issue for the officer.
Bland’s family is hoping results from an independent autopsy will provide some more answers to her death.
“I have to tell you I am very, very concerned on behalf of my family,” Cooper told ABC News. “And I’m just, just astounded.”