and promised to keep fighting for clarity on the circumstances surrounding her death.
Hundreds of people attended
Sandra Bland's funeral near the Chicago suburb where she grew up. They
celebrated her life, but some also said they were still struggling to
understand how a traffic stop for failing to use a turn signal escalated
into a physical confrontation and landed her in the cell where
authorities say she killed herself three days later.
The
Harris County, Texas, medical examiner's office determined through an
autopsy that Bland hanged herself with a plastic bag. The 28-year-old
woman's family has questioned the finding, saying she was excited about
starting a new job and wouldn't have taken her own life.
The
Rev. Theresa Dear told reporters outside the DuPage African Methodist
Episcopal Church that friends and family continue to have those doubts,
even as authorities release documents in support of their conclusion it
was suicide.
"When you are about to start a
new job, when you know your family is about to bring the money for your
release, when you are an activist and a fighter, you don't take your own
life," she said.
The traffic
stop, which was captured on police dash cam video and on a bystander's
cellphone, and Bland's death in custody have resonated on social media,
with many grouping it with other prominent U.S. cases involving
confrontations between the police and blacks over the past year.
Bland had spoken out about that
issue and others in a series of videos she posted online this year with
the hashtag "SandySpeaks."
Mourners
at Saturday's funeral wore T-shirts with the tag. One person had it
scrawled across a car window. Some took to Twitter with the hashtag
"SandySTILLSpeaks."
The July
10 traffic stop became heated when Bland refused the officer's request
to put out a cigarette and his subsequent order to get out of the car.
He threatened to shoot Bland with a stun gun unless she obeyed his order
and said she kicked him during the tussle. He has been placed on
administrative leave pending the outcome of an investigation.
Dear told mourners that Bland should be celebrated for standing up for herself.
"She
challenged and asked the question why, 'Why should I put out the
cigarette?'" Dear said. "She asked 12 times, 'Why am I being arrested?'
And so we celebrate that part of her personality."
Her story so moved people that her funeral even drew some who never met her.
"I
don't know Sandra, and I don't know what happened," Hank Brown, of
Chicago, told the Chicago 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."
Source: AP
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