More PR stunt then law after major provisions removed – PB/TK
Sister upset ‘Sandra Bland Act’ weakened in Texas – By Paul J. Weber l
The sister of Sandra Bland, a black woman found dead in a Texas jail following a confrontational traffic stop with a white state trooper, says it is “gut-wrenching” that lawmakers stripped police reforms from a bill named after her sibling and are now pushing a weakened compromise that “painfully misses the mark.”
Bland’s death in 2015 was a national flashpoint in the Black Lives Matter movement — the 28-year-old Chicago woman was stopped near Houston for not signaling a lane change, forcibly pulled from her car and found dead in jail days later.
A leaner “Sandra Bland Act” enters the home stretch of the Texas Legislature far from the sweeping package of police accountability and anti-racial profiling measures originally filed in March. In the face of opposition from law enforcement groups and Republicans, the bill was drastically slimmed down and now mostly focuses on better jail trailing and mental health care access.
“What the bill does in its current state renders Sandy invisible,” said Sharon Cooper, Bland’s older sister, in an interview with The Associated Press on Friday night. “It’s frustrating and gut-wrenching.”
Saying she was speaking on behalf of the Bland family, Cooper said the legislation as it now stands “isolates the very person it seeks to honor” and makes compromises at the expense of the family. “It painfully misses the mark for us,” she said.
Continue to abcnews.go .com article: http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/sister-weakened-sandra-bland-act-texas-gut-wrenching-47386786
