A Chicago CBS affiliate shared new details in the case of Sandra Bland, the civil rights activist found dead in her jail cell last week after her controversial arrest.

The report says police claim to have found a litany of evidence that points in the direction of Bland having committed suicide, including a history of suicidal statements, wrist scars, and the presence of marijuana in her system.

Posts on social media remain skeptical of the police story, and say the revelation that Bland allegedly had THC in her system is a smear tactic used steer the blame in her death away from police, who kept her in their custody.

The original report is below:

Waller County District Attorney Elton Mathis told CBS News reports he ordered an autopsy are not true, but a toxicology report revealed she had a substantial amount of marijuana in her system when she died. He also told CNN autopsy results indicate she had cutting scars on her arm.

The family has hired a medical examiner to conduct an independent autopsy, but the results of that autopsy have not yet been released.

Meantime, newly released booking documents reveal Bland told a deputy at the Waller County jail in Hempstead, Texas, that she once tried to kill herself within the last year by taking pills after she had a miscarriage.

In her handwritten jail intake form, there are check marks in the “yes” category next to questions asking if she ever felt very depressed, or if she feels that way now. In a computer-generated form produced a few hours later, the same questions are marked “no,” though both forms do show Bland previously attempted suicide.

Despite that, jail officials never placed her on suicide watch.

The Texas Commission on Jail Standards has found the cell where Bland died to be deficient and non-compliant with minimum jail standards. The commission said guards were not properly trained in suicide prevention procedures, and failed to observe Bland at least once an hour while she was in her cell, as required.

After she was jailed, Bland apparently called her friend, Lavaughn Mosley, and left a voicemail message, which was obtained by a Houston television station, but has not been independently verified by CBS News.

“They have me at a $5,000 bond. I’m still just at a loss for words, honestly, about this whole process. How did switching lanes with no signal turn into all of this? I don’t even know,” she apparently said.

The Waller County Sheriff’s office has said Bland committed suicide by hanging herself with plastic trash bags, but Mathis has said it’s too early to determine if her death was a suicide or homicide, and he is treating the case like a murder investigation. Mathis has said he will send the case to a grand jury to decide the manner of Bland’s death.

The Texas Rangers and FBI are investigating, but Hempstead Mayor Michael Wolfe Sr. said he’s worried many people already have made up their minds about a case still under investigation.

“We don’t have these issues that are being presented in terms of extreme racist tensions,” he said.

Bland’s family and friends have said they don’t believe she would kill herself.

“She was making plans to get out of jail,” Mosely said.

Bland had been arrested on July 10, after a routine traffic stop became heated, when both Bland and the state trooper who pulled her over began shouting at each other, and Bland ignored repeated orders to get out of her car, until the trooper threatened to use his stun gun.

“Quite frankly, I’m disgusted that we’re even having a discussion about an autopsy, because she was pulled over for something so insignificant, and because of an officer who felt like maybe his ego was bruised, but when you tell me that you’re going to light me up, I feel extremely threatened and concerned, and I’m not going to get out of my car,” said her sister, Sharon Cooper.

Bland’s family said they won’t comment any more, as they are preparing for her funeral on Monday in Lisle.

WALLER COUNTY, Texas — Ava DuVernay — director of the Oscar-nominated civil rights film Selma — made a posts on Twitter late Tuseday evening claiming the recently-released dashboard camera video of Sandra Bland’s arrest may have been doctored.

I edit footage for a living. But anyone can see that this official video has been cut. Read/watch. Why? #SandraBland http://t.co/2JXy9Zc4Y3

— Ava DuVernay (@AVAETC) July 22, 2015

“Someone clearly cut footage out and looped part of the video in order to correspond with the recorded audio of Texas state trooper Brian Encinia speaking,” said journalist Ben Norton, whom DuVernay responded to in her tweet. “Who exactly edited the footage is unknown, but the video was recorded by police and released by the Texas Department of Public Safety.”

Norton pointed out, amid growing skepticism of the official story, that there are several parts of the video which appear to show looped footage of the same vehicles moving in the background during Bland’s arrest.

The video in question is available below:

TruthVoice reported last Thursday that Bland was found dead in a jail Waller County jail cell three days after being charged for assaulting an officer. Police claim she died as a result of “self-inflicted asphyxiation.”

A vocal young anti-racist police brutality activist was found dead in a Texas jail cell Monday, and while police are claiming her death was a “suicide,” friends, and now family, activists, and social media are angrily protesting the official narrative amid a public outcry against police violence towards Black U.S. citizens.

The 28-year-old Sandra Bland was driving to a job interview Friday, when she was stopped by Waller County police officers for alleged improper signaling during a lane change, ABC7 Chicago quoted county Sheriff Department officials as saying. Officials say her death in her jail cell was ruled a suicide by hanging, but Bland’s family has expressed deep reservations over this version of events.

Authorities alleged Bland assaulted them, charging her with “assault on a public servant,” prior to her violent arrest. Witnesses said they saw police slamming Bland’s head on the dirt as they aggressively tossed her to the ground, using their knees to restrain her neck.

A video of the arrest filmed by a bystander surfaced online this week, in which Bland can be heard telling the officer she is unable to hear, in pain, and losing feeling in her arms as they sit on her. On Thursday, the Daily Kos reported that the Texas sheriff who made the first public comments about Bland’s in-custody death, was previously fired for multiple complaints of racism while the Daily Beast said she posted for bond before her alleged suicide, prompting even more suspicions of foul play.

“We have come completely full circle in that Jim Crow justice at the hands of state-sponsored agents, in this case the police, is alive and well,” Writer and Activist Brenda Nasr told media on Thursday. “(Her death in police custody) proves that it doesn’t matter how much you have assimilated into the mainstream, if you encounter the police you are viewed as a threat, just by virtue of your blackness.

Asserting our rights is a threat to the very fabric of a country built on the idea that black people are less than human,” she said. Nasr — whose campaign “We Want to Go Home” calls on African nations to grant asylum to African-Americans on the basis of U.S. racial persecution — says her campaign highlights the growing feeling of displacement many Black people feel within the United States in light of the continuing state violence and police unaccountability.

“She hanged herself” is the new “he reached for my gun,” Nasr wrote on her popular Facebook page.

According to ABC7 Chicago friends said Bland had been with her family in suburban Chicago over the July 4th holiday. Friends of Bland told ABC7 that she was “a warm, affectionate, outspoken woman,” who spoke out about police brutality on Facebook page and was critical of injustice against African-Americans in the midst of the national #BlackLivesMatter movement.

Bland, who has advocated for #BlackLivesMatter on a video on social media, is now the subject of the hashtag herself. Numerous people took to Twitter and Facebook using the famous hashtag, along with‪ #‎SayHerName,‬ ‪#‎WhatHappenedtoSandraBland‬ and #JusticeforSandraBland, to demand society, the media and authorities pay attention to the suspicious circumstances of her arrest and death.

Nasr also has used social media to highlight the way many people, particularly many white feminists, were quick to condemn the fictional death of a white woman in Rihanna’s recent controversial music video, but say little about the real life deaths of black women and men at the hands of police. “At least for the black community … These murders at the hands of police, other agents of the state, and “lone madmen”, are now happening on a near daily basis.

Every one of these incidents, followed by the lack of any real public outcry from any other community, reminds us of just how much we don’t matter to the dominant culture. How much our lives matter, or rather don’t matter, to them.”

Texas State Rangers say they are now investigating Bland’s death.

This content was originally published by teleSUR: http://www.telesurtv.net