New Jail Footage Shows Sandra Bland Was Alive During Booking
Officials in Waller County, Texas, have released new jail footage showing that Sandra Bland, the woman who was arrested during a traffic stop and died in jail under suspicious circumstances, was alive during the booking process. The county also produced “several hours” of footage of Bland in jail, showing her sleeping in her cell and being taken in and out, the AP reported Tuesday night.
Although Bland’s death has been ruled a suicide, her family believes she was happy and would never have taken her own life. They’ve ordered an independent autopsy. District attorneys, Texas Rangers, and the FBI are all investigating how Bland died.
The new video was released in response to a popular conspiracy theory that Bland was killed before she was ever booked into the jail, and that her official mugshot was staged after her death.
“Because of some of the things that’s gone out on social media, this county has been literally attacked,” Waller County Judge Trey Duhon said, adding that the FBI is investigating threats against county officials over Bland’s death.
Although the video shows Bland was brought in alive, it doesn’t do much to dispel doubts that she’d hang herself with a garbage bag three days later.
“She’s calm when she arrives at the jail, sometimes smiling and at one point putting her head in her hands,” the AP reported, describing the booking video, “The jailer let her use the phone at the booking desk instead of the pay phone in her cell, and she was seen talking with animation during some of the calls.”
Authorities said last week that there was no footage of Bland’s cell on the morning her body was found, only security tape showing the hallway and cell door.
Previously, the official dashcam video of Bland’s arrest had some conspicuous irregularities—parts of the video repeating, other parts possibly missing—that prompted the FBI to investigate whether it had been tampered with.