Texas jail

The family said it was a last resort after being unable to get enough information about the case.

Bland, a 28-year-old Chicago-area woman, was found dead in her Waller County jail cell in Hempstead on July 13. Bland's family and others also have criticized Trooper Brian Encinia, who stopped Bland for failing to signal a lane change. Video of the stop shows that the confrontation quickly escalated after Encinia asked Bland to put out her cigarette.

Hundreds of people attended Sandra Bland's funeral near the Chicago suburb where she grew up. 

They celebrated her life with words and songs of praise, and her mother danced in the church aisle with her arms raised. She and other mourners, though, said they were still struggling to understand how a traffic stop for failing to use a turn signal escalated into a physical confrontation and landed her in the cell where authorities say she killed herself three days later.

Waller County Sheriff Glenn Smith said Sandra Bland told a jailer about the previous suicide attempt sometime after her arrest on July 10.

Bland provided the information while being asked a series of questions posed to each person booked into the jail in Hempstead, about 60 miles northwest of Houston, the sheriff said.

He did not provide details about the conversation.

The Texas Rangers are investigating the circumstances surrounding the death of Sandra Bland of the Chicago suburb of Naperville. She was found dead Monday morning in a Waller County jail cell in Hempstead, Texas, about 60 miles northwest of Houston.

"Based on the Sandy that I knew, that's unfathomable to me," Bland's sister, Sharon Cooper, said at a news conference in Chicago.