Washington - The family of a woman who apparently committed suicide last month in a Texas jail cell after she was arrested in a questionable traffic stop filed suit on Tuesday against the state and local governments, the arresting police office and jailers.
Sandra Bland, 28, was found dead in her cell on July 13 in the Waller County Jail, about 80 kilometres north-west of Houston.
A post-mortem examination found she was hanged with a plastic trash bag, with no signs of any struggle or force against her.
Bland, who was African-American, had been arrested three days earlier by Texas state trooper Brian Encinia following a traffic stop for failing to signal a lane change.
The police dashboard video show that Encinia yanked Bland from her car at the point of a taser gun after she refused to put out a cigarette she was smoking.
Bland’s family filed a 46-page lawsuit on Tuesday in federal court, seeking unspecified damages from the Texas Department of Public Safety, Waller County, Encinia and two jailers.
The family, which arranged its own post-mortem examination after the official autopsy, has raised questions about the suicide finding, noting that Bland had just started a new job.
Relatives said Tuesday that they would accept whatever the truth of her death is proved to be.
The lawsuit alleged that Waller County provided inadequate policies and jailer training to protect inmates who are “potentially suicidal,” and accused Encinia of arresting Bland illegally.
“What remains constant is that she should not have been there in the first place,” said Sharon Cooper, Bland’s sister, according to the Houston Chronicle.
The case drew national and international attention last month.
DPA