Civil Rights

Sandra Bland's Autopsy Report Called into Question

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By Pat Sullivan/AP Photo.

A Texas medical examiner released an autopsy report on Thursday indicating that Sandra Bland, an African-American woman found dead in a jail cell on July 13, committed suicide by hanging as initially reported.

Bland was pulled over for a minor traffic violation on July 10 in Waller County by a white state trooper, Brian Encinia, who then arrested her for allegedly assaulting him. She was found dead in her jail cell three days later, the police said. The case gained national interest in the ensuing days as Bland‘s family, reporters, activists, and other observers have questioned the authorities‘ official narrative.

During a press conference Thursday, Texas prosecutor Warren Diepraam said that examiners found no indications of defensive injuries on Bland’s boday, but did find at least 30 cuts on her wrists that may have been made between two and four weeks ago, marijuana in her system, and “uniform and consistent“ marks indicating that she hung herself, as Waller County officials have said. They also emphasized that Bland reportedly had a history of mental illness. Though a video of Bland discussing her PTSD and depression seemingly confirms this, her family disputes the extent to which she struggled with them.

The prosecutor’s statements were immediately called into question by reporters and supporters of Bland’s family, based on the evidence released by the Waller County Sheriff’s Office: the dash-cam video of her arrest appeared to be erratically edited, and Bland‘s jail intake forms were inconsistent as to her mental history. (Diepraam said that Bland was at fault for giving erroneous information.)

BuzzFeed collected several theories circulating on social media, including discrepancies between photos of Bland’s cell, the specific errors in her intake forms, and the absence of actual footage of her cell. Some of the most ardent skeptics have speculated that Bland’s mugshot photo was taken after she died. Proponents of that theory have seized on the authorities‘ initial failure to release a profile shot of Bland during her intake, Bland’s wearing of an orange jumpsuit in her mugshot, which seemed inconsistent with the department’s practice.

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As Buzzfeed noted, Waller County police did release Bland’s side-facing shot on Wednesday evening, though it was of observably low quality. The Web site also turned up three recent mugshots of inmates wearing orange jumpsuits.