DALLAS (AP) – The small-town Texas jail where Sandra Bland died last summer needs a new building, more expertise among its staff to identify mental health issues, and body cameras and anger-management training for its jailers, according to a report issued Tuesday by a panel convened after Bland’s death.
The sheriff’s office in Waller County agreed to have outside experts review the county jail in Hempstead, about 50 miles northwest of Houston. The move followed the death of Bland, who was jailed there after a state trooper pulled her over in July 2015 for a minor traffic violation.
Dashcam video of the stop near Houston shows the trooper, Brian Encinia, yelling at Bland, then pulling a stun gun and saying, “I will light you up!” Encinia has pleaded not guilty to a misdemeanor perjury charge stemming from the stop. He has also been fired.
Bland, who was in the process of moving to Texas from the Chicago area, was found dead in the Waller County jail three days after her arrest. Authorities said she was hanging from a jail cell partition with a plastic garbage bag around her neck. A medical examiner ruled it a suicide and a grand jury declined to indict any sheriff’s officials or jailers in her death.
But the video of the black woman’s arrest and circumstances of her death provoked national outrage and drew the attention of the Black Lives Matter movement.