Lawmakers weaken bill named for woman found dead in jail
AUSTIN, Texas — The sister of Sandra Bland, a black woman found dead in a Texas jail after a confrontational traffic stop with a white state trooper, says it is “gut-wrenching” that lawmakers stripped police reforms from a bill named after her sibling and are now pushing a weakened compromise that “painfully misses the mark.”
Bland’s death in 2015 was a national flash point in the Black Lives Matter movement . The 28-year-old Chicago woman was stopped near Houston for not signaling a lane change, forcibly pulled from her car and found dead in jail days later.
A leaner Sandra Bland Act enters the homestretch of the Texas Legislature far from the sweeping package of police accountability and anti-racialprofiling measures originally filed in March. In the face of opposition from law enforcement groups and Republicans, the bill was drastically slimmed down and now mostly focuses on better jail trailing and mental health care access.
“What the bill does in its current state renders Sandy invisible,” Sharon Cooper, Bland’s older sister, said in an interview. “It’s frustrating and gut-wrenching.”
Saying she was speaking on behalf of the Bland family, Cooper said the legislation as it now stands “isolates the very person it seeks to honor” and makes compromises at the expense of the family. “It painfully misses the mark for us,” she said.
Cooper stopped short of saying Bland’s name should be removed the bill — a move some frustrated black community organizers in Texas say they would welcome given the changes.
Democrats who carried the measure say they did the best they could while up against the political realities of the Republican-controlled Legislature. The bill unanimously cleared the Senate last week and must now clear the House before the legislature adjourns on May 29.
Authorities say Bland hanged herself in the Waller County Jail with a plastic garbage bag in jail three days after being pulled over in July 2015. Dashcam video shows Trooper Brian Encinia ordering Bland out of the car and drawing his stun gun while yelling, “I will light you up!”
Bland can later be heard screaming off-camera that the trooper was about to break her wrists. Family, friends and activists have expressed skepticism that Bland committed suicide.