Sioux City, Iowa – U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders issued the following statement Monday after a grand jury in Texas decided no felony was committed by the sheriff’s office or jailers in the death of Sandra Bland:
“Sandra Bland should not have died while in police custody. There’s no doubt in my mind that she, like too many African-Americans who die in police custody, would be alive today if she were a white woman. My thoughts are with her family and her loved ones tonight. We need to reform a very broken criminal justice system.”
Read the Chicago Tribune story:
Prosecutor: No indictment for Texas jailers in Sandra Bland’s death
A grand jury decided Monday that no felony crime was committed by the sheriff’s office or jailers in the treatment of Sandra Bland, a black Naperville woman who died last summer in a Southeast Texas county jail.
But prosecutor Darrell Jorden said the Waller County grand jury reached no decision on whether Brian Encinia, the white trooper who arrested the 28-year-old Bland, should face charges. The grand jury will return in January to consider that issue.
