HEMPSTEAD, Texas (AP) — A grand jury decided on Monday that no felony crime was committed by the sheriff's office or jailers in the treatment of a black woman who died in a Southeast Texas county jail last summer. 
 
 Cannon Lambert Sr., left, attorney for Sandra Bland’s family, speaks at a news conference Monday, Dec. 21, 2015 in Chicago. Bland's family says they have no faith in a grand jury that's considering criminal... (Associated Press) 
 
 Geneva Reed-Veal, left, and Sharon Cooper, center, the mother and sister of Sandra Bland, listen to attorney Larry Rogers Jr., right, explain concerns about the Texas grand jury's role in the death of... (Associated Press) 
 
 Cannon Lambert Sr., left, attorney for Sandra Bland’s family, speaks at a news conference Monday, Dec. 21, 2015 in Chicago. Bland's family says they have no faith in a grand jury that's considering criminal... (Associated Press) 
 
 Geneva Reed-Veal, left, and Sharon Cooper, center, the mother and sister of Sandra Bland, listen to attorney Larry Rogers Jr., right, explain concerns about the Texas grand jury's role in the death of... (Associated Press) 
 
 But prosecutor Darrell Jordan said the Waller County grand jury reached no decision on whether the trooper who arrested 28-year-old Sandra Bland should face charges. The grand jury will return in January to consider that issue. 
 
 The Chicago-area woman was pulled over July 10 by a Texas state trooper for making an improper lane change. Dashcam video showed their interaction quickly became confrontational and she was arrested for assault. 
 
 Bland was taken in handcuffs to the county jail in nearby Hempstead, about 50 miles northwest of Houston, and remained there when she couldn't raise about $500 for bail. She was discovered dead in her jail cell three days later, hanging from a cell partition with a plastic garbage bag used as a ligature around her neck. 
 
 Bland's relatives, along with supporters fueled by social media postings, questioned a medical examiner's finding that Bland killed herself. 
 
 Cannon Lambert, an attorney representing Bland's family, said Monday the decision is consistent with what the family believes has so far been an attempt by authorities to cover up the events after Bland's arrest. 
 
 "They continue to do things we are disappointed in," he said. 
 
 Bland's mother and sisters spoke at a news conference in Chicago before Monday night's announcement, where they said they had no faith in the grand jury. 
 
 Bland's mother, Geneva Reed-Veal, said she wants to see all the evidence and is frustrated by delays in the case. Attorney Larry Rogers acknowledged grand juries usually meet in secret, but said the process "screams of a cover-up." He said lawyers haven't been able to examine a Texas Rangers report on the incident because it's grand jury evidence. 
 
 In the days after her death, county authorities released video from the jail to dispel rumors and conspiracy theories that Bland was dead before she arrived at the jail or was killed while in custody. County officials said they themselves received death threats. 
 
 Her arrest and death came amid heightened national scrutiny of police and their dealings with black suspects, especially those killed by officers or who died in police custody. 
 
 "After presenting all the evidence as it relates to the death of Sandra Bland, the grand jury did not return an indictment," Jordan said after the grand jury met Monday for about 11 hours. "The grand jury also considered things that occurred at the jail and did not return an indictment." 
 
 Jordan is one of five special prosecutors appointed by the county's district attorney, Elton Mathis. 
 
 "Having an independent committee to evaluate the case, that can be a positive thing in a situation like this," Brian Serr, a law professor at Baylor University said. 
 
 Among evidence presented in the secret grand jury proceedings were the findings of a Texas Rangers' investigation. 
 
 "There's nothing in there that shows anything happened but she killed herself," Mathis had said. 
 
 Lambert said late Monday he believes prosecutors' decision to have the grand jury return in January is another attempt to delay releasing the report. He said he expects to ask a federal judge to compel Texas authorities to turn over the document. 
 
 Bland's sister didn't immediately respond to a phone message requesting comment on the grand jury's decision, and Reed-Veal couldn't be reached for comment late Monday. 
 
 Royce West, a Dallas Democrat who has been a vocal leader in the case, and one of two black Texas state senators, also had said he was "comfortable" with the medical examiner's determination. 
 
 Bland's mother filed a wrongful death lawsuit in federal court in Houston against the trooper, the Texas Department of Public Safety, Waller County and two jail employees. State lawyers have asked a judge to dismiss the lawsuit. A judge last week set it for trial in January 2017. 
 
 The Bland family attorneys contend Waller County jailers should have checked on her more frequently and that the county should have performed mental evaluations once she disclosed she had a history of attempting suicide. In her lawsuit, Reed-Veal also contends that the trooper who arrested her daughter, Brian Encinia, falsified the assault allegation to take Bland into custody and that jail personnel failed to keep her daughter safe. 
 
 County officials have said Bland was treated well while locked up and produced documents that show she gave jail workers inconsistent information about whether she was suicidal. 
 
 Encinia, who in June completed a year-long probationary stint as a new trooper, has been on administrative duty since the Bland death. 
 
 Dashcam video from his car showed Encinia at one point holding a stun gun and yelling at Bland, "I will light you up!" after she refuses to get out of her car. The director of the Department of Public Safety, Steve McCraw, has said Encinia violated internal policies of professionalism and courtesy. 
 
 Melissa Hamilton, visiting criminal law scholar at the University of Houston, said Bland had no legal right to remain in her car after the trooper ordered her out. 
 
 "Whether you like it or not, the Supreme Court has made it clear police are in charge at a traffic stop, and they can make anybody get out of the car — driver or passenger — for no reason whatsoever," she said. "The idea for that is to allow police to control a potentially dangerous situation." ||||| A grand jury decided Monday that no felony crime was committed by the sheriff's office or jailers in the treatment of Sandra Bland, a black Naperville woman who died last summer in a Southeast Texas county jail. 
 
 But prosecutor Darrell Jorden said the Waller County grand jury reached no decision on whether Brian Encinia, the white trooper who arrested the 28-year-old Bland, should face charges. The grand jury will return in January to consider that issue. 
 
 "After presenting all the evidence as it relates to the death of Sandra Bland, the grand jury did not return an indictment," Jordan, one of the five special prosecutors, said after the grand jury met Monday for about 11 hours. "The grand jury also considered things that occurred at the jail and did not return an indictment." 
 
 Bland became an outspoken online supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement before she was arrested in July during a routine traffic stop in Waller County, about 50 miles northwest of Houston. Her death has since fueled the national debate about policing and racial profiling. 
 
 Grand jurors considered evidence collected by a team of five special prosecutors named by the county's district attorney, Elton Mathis. 
 
 "Having an independent committee to evaluate the case, that can be a positive thing in a situation like this," said Brian Serr, a law professor at Baylor University. 
 
 Among evidence presented in the secret grand jury proceedings were the findings of a Texas Rangers' investigation. 
 
 "There's nothing in there that shows anything happened but she killed herself," Mathis had said. 
 
 Royce West, a Dallas Democrat who has been a vocal leader in the case and one of two black Texas state senators, also had said he was "comfortable" with the medical examiner's determination. 
 
 At a news conference earlier Monday, the family of Bland said they do not believe her case is being thoroughly investigated by the Texas Rangers or properly presented to a grand jury by special prosecutors. 
 
 "Right now the biggest problem I have is the entire process," said Bland's mother, Geneva Reed-Veal, surrounded by her four daughters. "It's the secrecy of it all." 
 
 Reed-Veal said prosecutors have not sought to interview Bland's relatives about her death last summer. She also complained that family members have not been made aware of any physical evidence being presented in court and have not been kept abreast of grand jury proceedings. 
 
 "I simply can't have faith in a system that's not inclusive of my family," Reed-Veal said at a news conference in Chicago. "We're supposed to have an investigation to show us what's happening. We know what we've been listening to in the media ... but we don't have any real evidence." 
 
 Cannon Lambert, an attorney representing Bland's family, said Monday the decision is consistent with what the family believes so far has been an attempt by authorities to cover up the events after Bland's arrest. 
 
 Sandra Bland, 28, of Naperville, was found dead in a jail cell in Waller County, Texas, on July 13, 2015, after her July 10 arrest. 
 
 "They continue to do things we are disappointed in," he said. 
 
 At the time Bland was stopped July 10, she had just finished a successful job interview at her alma mater, Prairie View A&M University. 
 
 Encinia pulled her over for failing to signal a lane change, the two argued and Encinia arrested Bland, reporting that she had assaulted him. Bland was taken to the Waller County Jail in nearby Hempstead where, three days later, officials discovered her body, hanged with a plastic bag. After an autopsy by the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences in Houston, officials ruled her death a suicide. 
 
 But Bland's family and activists have questioned how the traffic stop was conducted and whether Bland killed herself. In August, the family filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against the Waller County sheriff's office, jail officials and the Texas Department of Public Safety. 
 
 Last month, attorneys representing Waller County filed a motion seeking to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that Bland took her life because she was distraught that her family members didn't bail her out of jail. 
 
 Encinia has been placed on administrative duty for violating agency regulations during the stop. In addition, the Texas Commission on Jail Standards found that jailers made mistakes when they processed her. 
 
 Last week, a federal judge in Houston set the case for trial Jan. 23, 2017. 
 
 Reed-Veal said Monday that she doubts any serious steps are being taken to hold anyone accountable for her daughter's death. 
 
 "I don't know what happened to my daughter," Reed-Veal said, but added, "I know what happened should not have happened." 
 
 Bland's sister, Sharon Cooper, said the family is "in pieces this holiday season." 
 
 "The timing of the grand jury, in my personal opinion, is disrespectful to the family and it continues to pour salt on a wound that has already been ripped open for the past five months," she said. "It prolongs the grieving process. And it is insulting. 
 
 "We feel like we have been shut out of this process from the very beginning. And we're at the door, knocking, willing and waiting, and waiting for the door to open for the answers that we've asked for regardless of what they are." 
 
 Lambert called the grand jury a "sham" meant to pacify public outrage. "It's a tool of the prosecution," he said. "That's not fair." 
 
 The Associated Press and Tribune Newspapers reporters Lolly Bowean and Molly Hennessy-Fiske contributed. ||||| Authorities in Texas have released a video covering the three hours before Sandra Bland was found dead in her jail cell. NBC Chicago's Phil Rogers reports. (Published Monday, July 20, 2015) 
 
 Texas authorities on Monday released a three-hour video taken from outside a jail cell where an Illinois woman arrested during a traffic stop was found dead. 
 
 The video from a motion-operated camera shows there was no activity for 90 minutes in the hallway leading to the cell where authorities say 28-year-old Sandra Bland was found hanged on July 13, three days after her arrest. 
 
 Video Footage Shows Hours Leading Up to Illinois Woman's Jail Cell Death 
 
 The video from a motion-operated camera shows there was no activity for 90 minutes in the hallway leading to the cell where authorities say 28-year-old Sandra Bland was found hanged on July 13, three days after her arrest. NBC Chicago's Regina Waldroup reports. (Published Monday, July 20, 2015) 
 
 Authorities also said dashcam video of Bland's arrest is expected to be released Tuesday. Waller County District Attorney Elton Mathis said Monday the video is consistent with information the officer has provided about the traffic stop. The Texas Department of Public Safety has said Bland was arrested after she allegedly kicked an officer. 
 
 But Mathis cautioned that the dashcam video shows only restricted views of the stop in Prairie View, Texas. 
 
 The Chicago-area black woman's death at the Waller County jail in Hempstead, about 60 miles northwest of Houston, comes amid increased national scrutiny of police after a series of high-profile cases in which blacks have been killed by officers. The FBI and the Texas Rangers are investigating. 
 
 "This investigation is still being treated just as it would be a murder investigation," Mathis said. 
 
 Bland's death been ruled a suicide by the Harris County Medical Examiner's Office, a finding that supporters and relatives dispute. Bland's family and others have called for a Justice Department probe and an independent autopsy. 
 
 "This was not a case of suicide, but homicide," Rev. Jamal Bryant, of the Empowerment Temple AME Church of Baltimore, said earlier Monday. He said he was in Hempstead at the Bland family's request. 
 
 DPS has said the trooper who stopped Bland violated traffic stop procedures and the department's courtesy policy, but hasn't elaborated further. The trooper is on administrative leave pending the outcome of an investigation. 
 
 Bland may have been trying to text or email in the moments after she was pulled over for an improper lane change, Mathis said Monday. 
 
 "Sandra Bland was very combative," the district attorney said. "It was not a model traffic stop ... and it was not a model person that was stopped on a traffic stop. I think the public can make its own determinations as to the behaviors that are seen in the video." 
 
 The video from the jail released Monday shows no activity in the hallway leading to Bland's cell for about 90 minutes until an officer goes to check on her. 
 
 It shows a deputy reacting to what she sees while looking in the cell, triggering a frenzy of activity involving other deputies. An EMT crew arrives with a wheeled stretcher. The video does not show the inside of her cell or even her cell door. Deputies and medical personnel are seen coming and going, but a body isn't visible. 
 
 Capt. Brian Cantrell, head of the sheriff's department criminal investigation division, said the video was motion sensitive, indicating if nothing is taking place after a certain amount of time, it turns off. He said the FBI has been given hard drives to determine if there's been any manipulation. 
 
 Cantrell said a guard checked with Bland about two hours before she was found dead and Bland told her, "I'm fine." About an hour later, she asked to make a telephone call from her cell and was advised the phone was on a wall in the cell, according to Cantrell. 
 
 There is no record of her ever making a phone call, he said. 
 
 Mathis also said jail records show Bland was offered a medical checkup but declined. 
 
 Cantrell declined to describe Bland's death in detail. He described the plastic garbage bag used as a ligature by extending his hands about 5 to 6 feet apart. 
 
 The bags, he said, had been approved by a jail inspector, but have since been removed from all cells. 
 
 Relatives and friends have insisted she was upbeat and looking forward to a new job at Prairie View A&M University, the school where she graduated in 2009. She was in the area to interview for the job and accepted it. 
 
 Mathis also said the dashcam video doesn't provide a complete view. The trooper's dash cam shows a view forward toward Bland's car, but not inside and not to the side, where she wound up on the ground after authorities said she kicked the officer. 
 
 "It doesn't show how she got on the ground," Cantrell said. 
 
 Copyright Associated Press / NBC Chicago
– No felony crime was committed by jailers in the puzzling jailhouse death of Sandra Bland and no indictments will be issued, a grand jury in Texas decided Monday night. In what was ruled a suicide, the 28-year-old was found dead in her cell at the Waller County Jail three days after she was arrested during a July 10 traffic stop. An independent special prosecutor says the process isn't over and the grand jury will meet again in January to consider charges against the trooper who arrested Bland, though a lawyer for her family says it has all been a "sham of a proceeding," the Houston Chronicle reports. The family's lawyers have been unable to access evidence from the secret grand jury proceedings, including a report from a Texas Rangers investigation, the AP reports. Bland's sister tells the Chicago Tribune that the family has been "shut out of this process from the very beginning" and is "in pieces this holiday season." "The timing of the grand jury, in my personal opinion, is disrespectful to the family and it continues to pour salt on a wound that has already been ripped open for the past five months," she says. Bernie Sanders also weighed in on the case, NBC News reports. "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," he said in a statement. "We need to reform a very broken criminal justice system." (The family's lawyers say the county made an insulting claim when it sought to have their wrongful death lawsuit dismissed.)