http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/07/21/1404231/-What-Happened-to-Sandra-Bland-Inmates-and-Community-Disagree-with-Official-Story?detail=email
Byron Garfield, a 30 year old African-American male inmate at Waller County Jail has been incarcerated for at least 5 months, and confirmed that the milky colored trash bags activists pulled from the jail’s dumpster were in fact the ones used inside, but said that “those bags won’t hold a 175-pound person. I don’t think it was possible that she used a trash bag to kill herself.”
He was unsure if the women’s two jail cells had the same kind of divider as the men’s, but said that if they did, it would have been impossible to tie a bag around it. When asked if he thought local officers were racist or racially biased he said “he didn’t think, he knew”. When asked to view the inside of a female cell, Waller County officials refused.
Mr. Garfield also repeated that it just didn’t make sense for her to have killed herself if she had a job lined up. Byron Garfield has been incarcerated for at least five months, without an indictment, for alleged theft charges in violation of Texas law, according to him. We are looking into that situation now. Another inmate, Aaron Livingston reconfirmed doubts that the trash bags provided to inmates would hold enough weight to result in death by suicide.
We also spoke to a community member and former African American female inmate who had been in the same type of cell that Sandra Bland would have been in. She asked to be identified as “Kiandra” for security purposes. During an interview she also confirmed the types of trash bags found on site were accessible to inmates, but that she also didn’t think it likely to hold the reported 175lbs Ms. Bland was said to weigh. She ended by saying that, “It’s like this every day, and nothing is changing. Obama could come down here, and it’s not going to stop.”
We went into the neighborhood surrounding the Waller County Jail, and spoke with a resident by the name of Calvin Glover. Mr. Glover, 32 and from Hempstead, has also been inside of the facility and in his opinion, “you can’t hang yourself in the holding cell, at least not on the male side”, and that he suspected “sure fire foul play.” He went on to say that “[they] ain’t never going to tell the truth”, that “you can’t hang yourself with those trash bags”, and that local officers profile individuals based on the color of their skin.
We are expecting results from an independent autopsy conducted by Sandra Bland’s family. The Texas Department of Public Safety has already determined that there were policy violations in how the traffic stop was conducted, and the Texas Commission on Jail Standards has also cited Waller County for failure to observe an inmate at least once an hour and for substandard training in how to handle potentially suicidal and mentally disabled inmates.this is what i referred to in earlier post about the different accounts an the logic of what is said and i just noticed something of interest if there were records of mental problems how did they get access to them so fast and doesn't that violate some privacy issue? i know she was an adult and now deceased but it seems funny that they would go after and publish those records are they trying to get in front of charges they may incur???
say a prayer for Mr. Garfield he put himself in the jackpot by giving statements contradicting the police that have him in their custody.
