The Brief: After Bland Grand Jury Action, Focus Is on Trooper

By John Reynolds The Big ConversationA day after a Waller County grand jury decided not to indict any county jail employees in connection with the July death of Sandra Bland, the focus remained on the Department of Public Safety trooper who made the initial traffic stop.The grand jury, which will reconvene next month, has yet to take action in Brian Encinia’s arrest of Bland. The Houston Chronicle’s St. John Barned-Smith reported that protesters across the country want an indictment against Encinia, blaming the arrest as contributing heavily to her subsequent death.An attorney representing Bland’s family in a wrongful death lawsuit told the Chronicle that he was skeptical that Encinia would be charged. “They’ve had video of what Encinia did — there’s 52 minutes that shows exactly what Encinia did,” he said. “He had no probable cause to pull her out of car and make her get out. He was just upset she didn’t want to put her cigarette out.”Politicians like U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, and Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders also weighed in on the Bland arrest in the aftermath of the grand jury’s decision not to indict. Sanders said, via a tweet, “There’s no doubt in my mind that she, like too many African-Americans who die in police custody, would be alive today if she were a white woman.”