Sandra Bland Remembered at Funeral in Hometown Chicago Church

Sandra Bland Remembered at Funeral in Hometown Chicago Church

CHICAGO, July 25 (UPI) — Relatives and friends on Saturday said goodbye to Sandra Bland — the woman who died in a Texas jail cell following a traffic stop that has sparked nationwide controversy.

Bland, 28, died in Prairie View on July 13 — three days after she was arrested for noncompliance toward a Texas state trooper and thrown in jail. Police said she was stopped because she failed to signal a lane change.

Bland, however, thought the trooper’s actions were excessive — which led to an altercation, and the arrest

Her funeral was held Saturday at the DuPage A.M.E. Church, where she had attended for much of her life.

“I’m the mama, and I’m telling you that my baby did not take herself out,” Geneva Reed-Veal, Bland’s mother, said at the memorial service.

A native of Illinois, Bland attended college at Prairie View A&M in Texas — the very school she was returning to this month to accept a job. Reed-Veal told reporters Saturday that Bland felt she was answering a calling by returning to the campus.

“Her purpose was to stop all injustice against blacks in the South,” she said.

Authorities said Bland was found hanging in her cell with a plastic trash bag tied around her neck. The coroner said the cause of her death was consistent with suicide.

Up to her death, Bland had been battling depression, and had even attempted suicide earlier this year after losing a baby. She acknowledged the attempt upon her admittance to the Waller County Jail — but officials failed to contact a crisis center, which they are required to do by law, if a new inmate exhibits signs they might be suicidal.

Bland’s family and friends, though, have been reluctant to accept the claim that she killed herself.

“This is someone who had over 50 selfies, healthy self-esteem,” the Chicago church’s Rev. Theresa Dear said Saturday. “Someone who had two job offers. Someone who just talked to her family and knew that help and rescue was on the way. This is someone who knew the Lord and was extremely close with her church family and her sisters, her biological family.

“None of that adds up to taking one’s life or suicide.”

Those who knew Bland spoke highly of her during the memorial service — saying they remember her as an ambitious young woman who sought to enrich those around her and make a difference with her life.

Many who attended the funeral were not personally acquainted with Bland, however, but expressed fear that the issue of police brutality nationwide may be getting worse, the Chicago Tribune reported.

“I don’t know Sandra, and I don’t know what happened,” Hank Brown, a Chicago resident, told the Tribune. “But I do know she didn’t have to die. There’s an epidemic of police terror in this country, and people need to stand up.”