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News > World

Death of US Black Activist Investigated 'Like A Murder'

  • Sandra Bland was a well known social activist and vocal critic of racism and police brutality.

    Sandra Bland was a well known social activist and vocal critic of racism and police brutality. | Photo: Facebook

Published 21 July 2015
Opinion

The death of a prominent African American activist in a jail cell will be “treated like a murder investigation,” a Texas district attorney has stated.

A district attorney in Texas announced Monday the jail cell death of Sandra Bland will be investigated as thoroughly as a murder, after a public outcry.

“This is being treated like a murder investigation,” Waller County District Attorney Elton Mathis said.

Mathis stated there were “too many questions” surrounding Bland's death.

Bland's family has already called for an independent autopsy and a U.S. Department of Justice investigation.

Bland was a well known social activist and vocal critic of racism and police brutality.

She died after being detained by police earlier this month. Bland was driving to a job interview when she was stopped by Waller County police officers for alleged improper signaling during a lane change, ABC7 Chicago quoted county Sheriff Department officials as saying. Officials have previously stated her death in her jail cell was ruled a suicide by hanging, but Bland’s family has expressed deep reservations over this version of events.

Authorities alleged Bland assaulted them, charging her with “assault on a public servant,” prior to her violent arrest. Witnesses said they saw police slamming Bland’s head on the dirt as they aggressively tossed her to the ground, using their knees to restrain her neck.

“We have come completely full circle in that Jim Crow justice at the hands of state-sponsored agents, in this case the police, is alive and well,” writer and activist Brenda Nasr told teleSUR English last week.

The case has been added to a long list of Black people who have died at the hands of the police, leading people to express their grievances on social media with the hashtag “If I Die in Police Custody,” which trended in the United States Friday.

“(Her death in police custody) proves that it doesn't matter how much you have assimilated into the mainstream, if you encounter the police you are viewed as a threat, just by virtue of your Blackness. Asserting our rights is a threat to the very fabric of a country built on the idea that black people are less than human,” Nasr said.

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