Trooper charges called ‘slap on wrist’

Perjury charges levied against the Texas state trooper who arrested Sandra Bland during a confrontational traffic stop last summer are “a slap on the wrist,” Bland’s family said Thursday.

Bland’s mother and three of her sisters said Wednesday’s indictment of Brian T. Encinia, who is accused of lying about the circumstances of the arrest, which was captured on a dashboard camera, makes little difference in their battle to uncover details about what happened.

The 28-year-old Bland was found dead three days later in her jail cell, and her relatives said authorities continued to conceal information from them.

“Where is the indictment for the assault, the battery, the false arrest?” Geneva Reed-Veal, Bland’s mother, said in a news conference at her attorney’s office. “I can’t be expected to be excited about that because I felt there’s so much more that he should have been indicted on.”

“Justice looks like holding people accountable for what they do, not part of what they do,” attorney Cannon Lambert said.

Reed-Veal said she wanted to see officials follow through with their efforts to fire Encinia, but she was not confident that the trooper would be convicted on the misdemeanor charge.

“I don’t trust the system,” she said.

Bland’s family said the widely disseminated video of Bland’s arrest makes clear that Encinia is culpable for more than lying about the circumstances of the arrest.

Bland’s death in her jail cell was ruled a suicide.

Encinia could face a maximum of a year in jail if convicted. He has been on paid administrative duty since the July incident, and Texas law enforcement officials announced shortly after the indictment that they planned to fire him.

The trooper surrendered Thursday at the Waller County Jail in Hempstead, Texas.