Post by Logan on May 3, 2017 20:56:57 GMT -6
The Senate Criminal Justice Committee on Tuesday approved its version of the Sandra Bland Act, which aims to comprehensively change the way police and civilians interact.
The Senate version of the bill, authored by Criminal Justice Committee Chairman John Whitmire, D-Houston, would mandate that county jails route people with mental health and substance abuse issues to treatment and install electronic sensors or cameras to better monitor inmates. It also would require training for officers on limiting use of force and understanding implicit bias.
On the police searches front, it also would prohibit officers from conducting a search with a person's consent, unless they first telling them that they can refuse and after that person signs off on the search or verbally consents to one. The verbal consent would be recorded by the officer's body camera or the camera in the officer's vehicle.
Bland, a black woman from Illinois, was pulled over in Prairie View on July 10, 2015, by then-Texas Department of Public Safety trooper Brian Encinia after she failed to signal a lane change. When Bland's conversation with Encinia became heated, he arrested her on a charge of assaulting a public servant. She was found dead three days later in the Waller County Jail. Officials ruled her death a suicide.
Read more: www.texastribune.org/2017/05/02/texas-senate-panel-approves-sandra-bland-act/
The Senate version of the bill, authored by Criminal Justice Committee Chairman John Whitmire, D-Houston, would mandate that county jails route people with mental health and substance abuse issues to treatment and install electronic sensors or cameras to better monitor inmates. It also would require training for officers on limiting use of force and understanding implicit bias.
On the police searches front, it also would prohibit officers from conducting a search with a person's consent, unless they first telling them that they can refuse and after that person signs off on the search or verbally consents to one. The verbal consent would be recorded by the officer's body camera or the camera in the officer's vehicle.
Bland, a black woman from Illinois, was pulled over in Prairie View on July 10, 2015, by then-Texas Department of Public Safety trooper Brian Encinia after she failed to signal a lane change. When Bland's conversation with Encinia became heated, he arrested her on a charge of assaulting a public servant. She was found dead three days later in the Waller County Jail. Officials ruled her death a suicide.
Read more: www.texastribune.org/2017/05/02/texas-senate-panel-approves-sandra-bland-act/