Posted on 07/23/2015 6:12:22 PM PDT by Citizen Zed
The autopsy of a black woman who was found dead in a Texas jail revealed no injuries that would suggest she was killed by someone else, authorities said Thursday.
Waller County prosecutor Warren Diepraam said the autopsy showed that 28-year-old Sandra Bland had no defensive injuries on her hands that would typically indicate a struggle.
Some lacerations or abrasions were found on her wrists. Those were consistent with a struggle while being handcuffed. The marks around Bland's neck were consistent with a suicide by hanging, Diepraam said.
Bland also had about 30 small cuts on her wrist that were probably self-inflicted within the last few weeks, he added.
She was arrested in a traffic stop three days before she was found in her cell on July 13. Her family and friends dispute the official finding that she killed herself using a noose fashioned from a plastic garbage bag.
Texas Rangers and the FBI are investigating.
Also Thursday, the woman's sister confirmed that Bland had taken prescription medication for seizures in the past.
Booking documents filled out for Bland after her arrest indicate she told staff at the jail that she had epilepsy and was taking medication for it. The forms identify the drug as Keppra.
Other forms, however, say she was not taking medication.
Company information on Keppra, which is sold in regular and extended-release forms, says that "antiepileptic drugs, including Keppra and Keppra XR, may cause suicidal thoughts or actions in a very small number of people, about 1 in 500."
(Excerpt) Read more at m.heraldcourier.com ...
But she didn’t do anything.
She pulled over in response to flashing lights. She didn’t signal because she was rattled by the lights.
She was irritated by being pulled over for no reason. She didn’t put out her cigarette because she was smoking in her own car.
The police interact with people who are not at their best - people who are irritated, or frightened, or angry, or impatient, or drunk, or criminal, or fragile. So they should be expecting that, and not mistake a lack of deference for criminal behavior in itself.
But this guy was escalate, escalate, all the way. Why the f-— should agents of the state be nosing around your car, your person, your cigarette, your mood, for a traffic violation - in this case, a traffic violation provoked by an agent of the state?
I am not ashamed to say I have a lead foot. As a result, I have had interactions with LEO’s a time or three. I complied with their requests and am alive today. I was respectful to them. As a result, they were polite and courteous to me. See how that works? Why is that so darned hard for some members of society to grasp and understand?
I don’t get it either. It’s pretty darn simple in my world.:)
(I used to have a lead foot myself. But I got tired of paying tickets and higher insurance. But I never argued.)
Keep doing autopsies until you get the result you want, then stop.
Reminds me of another tactic of leftists.
It's worse than the "Front Page" days of the tabloid '20s. Every media outlet in the country is investigating every black death, hoping to find a white person behind it so they can run with it for weeks. Beyond sick.
The sad part is that she needed to be in a mental hospital, but unfortunately we no longer really provide care for the mentally ill.
We elect them to political offices, mostly.
Keppra and Keppra XR, may cause suicidal thoughts or actions in a very small number of people, about 1 in 500.”
Which is , coincidentally, the same rate that people hang themselves while in jail.
; )
At it's simplest, I would suggest the reason is immaturity.
I got pulled over this week on my way to work. State Boy, even hand his palm on his sidearm when he approached ...
Asked a couple of questions, wanted my ID. Warned me for no seat belt and I was on my way in less than 5 minutes.
Yeah he was a cocky little twerp but I didn’t feel like going native, getting in a fight, arrested, stomped, tazed, shot or anything else.
I have found keeping the mouth shut in cases like that pay off versus fighting the “Man” on the side of the road...
Silly me. Must be a culture thing. Or the day they taught resisting the man in H.S. I was skipping class.
I guess at this point in my life I’ll just read the end results of doing it correctly.
The blacklivesmatter group is going to have to go elsewhere for that gotcha moment.
One day they gonna burn the wrong town...
How many times did they cut into St. Michael? 3 all told game back to the same result.
Hadn’t made bail yet
The award money is coming just the same
In this video, it looks like Bland blows by a stop sign and doesn’t signal, as she pulls onto the road...at the 1:16 point:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URAZ3umt7v0
At the 1:29 point, as the trooper makes a U-turn, you can see that there is a stop sign there, and she just blasted through it.
So I think that’s what initially got his attention. But for whatever reason (perhaps he lost sight of her during the U-turn), he didn’t pull her over for that...but instead followed right behind her....until she gave him a new reason to pull her over....and she did at the 1:53 point by switching lanes without a signal.
Now at 2:03 the sound comes on in the video - and I believe the sound comes on when the trooper turns the lights on. So she made the bad lane change first, and then the lights came on...meaning the lights did not cause her to change lanes.
At this point, its a pretty normal event, and a situation I have been in before. A cop pulls a U-turn and ends up behind me, I’m nervous and do everything I can to let him in front of me...and sometimes that doesn’t work, and I get pulled over.
And its pretty normal after that. A warning. And as far as I can tell, she has an Illinois plate but a Texas drivers license. Again a situation I’ve been in before (when in the military), that can cause additional scrutiny and questioning - you’re supposed to maintain both your tag and license wherever ‘home’ is...meaning they should always be the same. But the trooper just asks her a few questions about how long she’s been here, etc, and is satisfied (I think she has 30 days to tag the car in TX, if she’s just moved there). Again, he’s pretty chilled out.
Then the ‘contempt of cop’, with the cigarette. I think both are in the wrong here. He shouldn’t be so upset...but she is obviously trying to be difficult. Now he’s supposed to be trained, and should be the first to de-escalate, so he is at fault. But Bland did not help the situation by refusing to get out of the car, calling him names, etc...and allegedly kicking at him. Neither one of them handled it very well.
Now just about all I know about law enforcement comes from watching COPS...so I’m no expert. But I will say that cops seem to have a 6th sense of when somebody is hiding something. And, most people are very polite to the police during a traffic stop (trying to get away with just a warning). So when a person is not very polite, even when getting a warning...and refuses to put out a cigarette...it can look suspicious - I’d wonder just what type of smell she was hiding with the cig smoke. So I think it was a little more than just contempt of cop - and when she started arguing with all commands, he probably becomes even more suspicious that she is hiding something.
Turns out that (as far as we know) his 6th sense was off - and she wasn’t hiding anything. I guess my point is, if you act in an unusual manner when interacting with police, they will interpret this as an attempt to hide a crime, and not a libertarian stand against police impropriety. Ergo, I’m always polite.
Why did she spend 3 days in jail? If she was depressed anyway that would have made it worse. Was she concerned that she would lose her new job that hadn’t even started yet? Have the jailers said anything about her behavior during those 3 days?
I have no idea why she spent 3 days in jail. Another poster has suggested that she was arrested on a Friday, which could mean a delay to Monday for a bond hearing.
Never having been arrested myself or anyone in my family or even anyone I know, I do not know how these things work, and I thank God for that!
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