Mother of Sandra Bland starts new foundation in her name

AUSTIN, Texas - Sandra Bland was making a long drive to Texas when she was pulled over by state trooper Brian Encinia. The traffic stop got heated, and it led to her arrest. 

She died in her jail cell three days later. Investigators say she hung herself.

"That girl put everything in the car and drove down here by herself, and you think that's a person who would commit suicide?" said her mother, Geneva Reed Veal.

She believes investigators are not telling the whole story of her daughter’s death.

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"You tell me how a crime scene is being infiltrated by news media immediately after she was gone? None of it makes sense. Nobody ever talked about no DNA being found anywhere, nobody talked about them clipping her nails to the skin to where there was blood," she said.

On behalf of her daughter, Veal started The Sandra Bland Center for Racial Justice.

She showed up at the Texas capitol on Memorial Day, alongside lawyers from the Dorothy Butler Law Firm to make the announcement but also denounce the lack of police reform bills getting through this legislative session. She said her daughter knew her purpose before she passed.

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"I'm supposed to go back south and help all of the people that are not being helped by the system, that's my goal, and to think she'd be dead one week after she said that," said Veal.

Veal hopes her organization can act as a helping hand to thousands of families in need. "We’ve got mothers who told us they need bail money for their kids who are in there unnecessarily, they may need assistance with scholarships for their kids," she said.

Now, six years later, Veal is standing at the Capitol fighting for justice for not only her "Sandy" but for all. "No she wasn't the next Rosa Parks, she wasn't the next Coretta Scott King, she was the first Sandy," she said.