Sandra Bland’s Mother Files Wrongful-Death Lawsuit

[uhnope]

Source: NEW YORK TIMES

CHICAGO — A federal lawsuit filed Tuesday by the mother of Sandra Bland, the Illinois woman found hanging in a Texas jail cell last month, contends that Ms. Bland should never have been arrested and that she was later held in dangerous conditions without proper supervision.

The wrongful-death lawsuit named the Texas state trooper, Brian T. Encinia, who made the arrest, and two guards at the Waller County Jail, where Ms. Bland died, as defendants, along with the Texas Department of Public Safety and the county.

The lawsuit, filed in Federal District Court in Houston, said that Trooper Encinia made up a reason to arrest Ms. Bland and that jailers failed to react when she refused meals and “had bouts of uncontrollable crying.”

“We are looking for Waller County and for individuals involved in this situation to take accountability,” Cannon Lambert, a lawyer for Ms. Bland’s family, said at a news conference in Houston. “This family is frustrated.”

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/05/us/sandra-bland-family-lawsuit.html?_r=0

[elias49]

1. Excellent!

This can't be swept away in a frenzy of Cecil love and the Endless Idiocy of Donald Trump.

[uhnope]

2. Cecil the lion? worst first response ever

You remind me of the rightwingers who complain about the attention Cecil is getting while babies are being aborted. Yours is the fake-leftist version. How dare anyone care about Cecil while Sandra Bland case is ongoing.

Sick, really. And given your known support for very anti-progressive causes in the name of "anti-imperialism", a bit suspect

[elias49]

5. What's your problem?

Making stuff from whole cloth.
Adios!

[TexasProgresive]

10. Pick your outrage!

[november3rd]

3. Thank God!

Fight, fight, fight!

I'm sure we know only a fraction of the truth. And based on what we have seen, what we don't know yet needs to come to light, so more innocent people are not persecuted and victimized.

[fbc]

6. Sadly, this lawsuit has no chance of success.

There will be no justice in this case.

[Xithras]

8. It may have a partial chance.

The case against the arresting officer and jail guards will most likely be tossed. Between direct liability questions, establishing federal jurisdiction, and the municipal immunity laws in that state, it's unlikely that the suits have much of a chance to go anywhere.

The claims against the state for the jail conditions are another matter. If the family can show that the state and/or jail should have reasonably known that there were mental health issues at play and failed to act on them, a legal liability may have been created. Courts HAVE ruled that jails do have a responsibility to protect mentally unstable inmates from self-harm, IF the jail should have reasonably known that the potential for self-harm existed. We already know that she was refusing food and that she was emotionally unstable (crying uncontrollably). We also know that the jail failed to perform a mental health evaluation on her that is required by state law, and that the check wasn't completed until after her death. While the jail claimed that the "system was down", the state has already confirmed that it was not. The jail has also been cited because there is no evidence that the jailers had taken the mental health evaluation training courses that the jail commission required. This raises serious questions about whether her mental health was properly evaluated, and whether the jail could have intervened to help her if they had done so.

[fbc]

9. Good post. That's a reasonable explanation.

[cstanleytech]

11. Yup. Still I feel for the mother because its sad to lose a loved one. nt

[davidpdx]

12. I agree

Though there is no doubt in my mind that the arresting officer should be fired.

The entire thing was botched from beginning to end. When she was in their custody they had a responsibility to ensure her safety and did not.

I hope her death is not in vain.

[Igel]

7. She refused meals and had bouts of uncontrollable crying?

That doesn't sound good. In fact, it almost sounds like they're reversing their positions because it's a useful tactic.

"There's no way she committed suicide."

"Leaving her alone when she refused meals and had bouts of uncontrollable crying should have told you that the garbage bag constituted an 'unsafe condition' and she needed closer supervision."

I have trouble reconciling those two stances. My suspicion is that as soon as all the preliminary legal dancing is out of the way, the first words spoken will be "out of court settlement?"

Did the family ever release the results of the private autopsy they said they'd ordered? The wave of Cecilian hysteria swamped the Bland matter.

[laserhaas]

13. No matter how it is sliced, the sandwich fact is a warning ticket resulted in untimely demise.

Facts indisputable......