Public demands answers: Was Sandra Bland already dead in her police mugshot?

Disturbing questions have been raised over the death of 28-year-old Sandra Bland, who lost her life whilst in police custody

‘Her eyes look dead’: Was Sandra Bland already dead in her police mugshot?

by Kayleigh Dray |
Published on

Very little is known about the death of Sandra Bland, the woman who was found hanged in her Texas jail cell after being arrested in what started as a routine traffic stop.

Much of the stop was captured by state trooper Brian Encinia's dashcam.

The footage, released by the Texas Department of Public Safety, shows him talking to the 28-year-old, who questions the reason for the stop, and refuses to put out a cigarette she's smoking.

While the camera does not capture everything, the audio remains clear - and, despite the fact that Encinia cannot be seen handcuffing Sandra Bland, their exchange can clearly be heard off-camera.

Sandra can be heard complaining about the officer's violent treatment of her - and screaming in pain, yelling "my wrist!"

The footage has been widely criticised for irregularities in which the video repeats itself or is cut while the audio continues uninterrupted.

The Texas Department of Public Safety blamed the apparent irregularities on a technical glitch, and said the video had not been edited.

Three days after she was arrested, Sandra Bland was found dead from apparent "self-inflicted asphyxiation" in her cell.

Many questions have been raised by both the press and the public.

  • Why was she arrested in the first place - and in such a heavy-handed manner?

  • Why can she be heard screaming in footage taken of her arrest?

  • Why was the police officer so hostile towards her? He can be heard threatening to 'light you up' in the video.

  • Why was she placed alone in a cell which was designed for four people?

  • Why was she held in jail for three days over a traffic offence?

  • Why, in a quiet jail, was she not being more closely watched by officers?

  • Why would she have killed herself? Her family have said that she was 'euphoric' about a new job and that she was not suffering from depression.

But now an even more disturbing questions has been raised:

Was Sandra Bland already dead when her mugshot photo was taken?

Some of the questions that people have posed about the mugshot image include:

  • Why is Sandra wearing an orange jumpsuit in a mugshot which was supposedly taken during in-processing? Many other Waller County jail mugshots available online show inmates in their street clothes, with the photo presumably taken as soon as they arrived at the jail.

  • Why are the locks of her hair falling backwards, towards the ‘wall’? If she was standing up, her locks should be hanging straight down, as they are in every other image of her we have where she has locks.

  • Why does the fat, muscle and skin in her face appear to be faling backwards?

  • Why do her eyes appear to be unfocused and 'dead'?

Speaking on Counter Current News, one writer claimed: “Her face, collagen, fat, loose musculature, is all seeming to fall backwards, rather than down. This would seem to indicate that she is laying down.

“On the right side of the image, we can see the left side of her face (our right), drooping lower than the opposite side.

“Some have suggested this indicates effects of oxygen depletion to the brain.”

While there is little to no evidence to support these claims, it has been enough to spark demands for a thorough investigation into every aspect of her July 10 arrest and everything that happened from the moment she was detained.

Dash cam footage taken from the trooper's vehicle, as a result of people calling for answers on social media, has since been released.

However this has done little to alleviate fears; instead, the ‘blips’ in the footage have sparked immediate speculation that it had been altered.

Officials have denied that the footage was edited and attributed the glitches to uploading issues.

People have also questioned the official police documents, which appear to suggest contradicting information between the suicide risk assessment and the inmate intake sheet.

However Waller County prosecutor Warren Diepraam has said that the official autopsy has shown that 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, he said.

He added that Sandra Bland also had about 30 small cuts on her wrist that were probably self-inflicted within the last few weeks.

However Cannon Lambert, who is providing legal representation for Sandra Bland’s family, has slammed the autopsy stating as “defective."

"The family’s confidence is shaken by the continued discrepancies that are surfacing," he said in an email.

The family has maintained Bland was excited to start her new job at her alma mater, Prairie View A&M University, and was not suicidal.

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