HOUSTON – Supporters of Sandra Bland are scheduled to hold a press conference Tuesday afternoon to protest the grand jury proceedings that culminated Monday night with no indictments in Bland's death.
After hearing more than eight hours of evidence in the case, a Waller County Grand Jury declined to indict any county jail employees.
"That means that if indeed she was murdered, no one will be ultimately held responsible," activist Deric Muhammad said Tuesday afternoon. "We're disgusted with the grand jury's decision and we're calling on the federal government and the attorney general, Loretta Lynch, to intercede directly into this case so that truth and justice can prevail for Sandra Bland's family."
Muhammad is leading the protest in Waller County scheduled to begin at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday. A second protest is planned at the big hill at Hermann Park at 6 p.m. Tuesday.
"We are not going to allow what they have done in a limited, secret capacity to prevent us from doing what we need to do to get answers for the family," Bland family attorney Cannon Lambert said Monday night.
There are other indictments the grand jury is considering, but the county would not go into detail.
"All the grand jury did yesterday was decline to indict anybody with the jail staff, the jailers, the support personnel," said KPRC 2 legal analyst Brian Wice. "That this grand jury might not find cause to indict someone else, obviously that's the $64,000 question."
The grand jury will reconvene again sometime in January.
Bland was found dead in a Waller County Jail cell on July 13, three days after she was arrested during a traffic stop. Authorities said she hanged herself, a finding her family has questioned.
Waller County prosecutors said the medical examiner found no injuries consistent with struggle. There was, however, a bruise on Bland's neck consistent with suicide. The Harris County Institute of Forensic Science found Bland died as a result of suicide.
Bland's family in Chicago called a news conference earlier Monday saying the grand jury system in Texas is flawed and testimony presented there should be open for the public to hear.
"Right now, the biggest problem for me is the entire process. I simply can't have faith in a system that's not inclusive of my family that's supposed to have the investigation," Bland's mother, Geneva Read-Veal, said.