So news broke yesterday that authorities in Waller County, Texas, have “full faith” that Sandra Bland committed suicide. They said there was “no evidence of a struggle” on the body of the 28-year-old African-American woman who was ludicrously jailed last week after an alleged lane change violation.

In related news, the Texas Department of Safety ruled that Brian Encina, the officer who arrested Bland, pulled her from her car, and threatened her with a Taser, had merely violated the state’s “courtesy policy.” The state said there was “no evidence” yet of criminal behavior on Encina’s part.

So barring something unexpected, we know now how this is going to play out in the media.

Many news outlets are going to engage in an indirect version of the usual blame-the-victim game by emphasizing the autopsy finding of suicide, questioning Bland’s mental health history, and by highlighting the reports of marijuana found in her system.

Beyond that, we can expect a slew of chin-scratching “legal analyses” concluding that while there may have been some minor impropriety on officer Encina’s part, the law governing police-motorist encounters is too “complicated” to make this anything more than a tragic accident.

Media scandals are like criminal trials. They’re about assigning blame. Because Bland may have technically taken her own life, the blame is now mostly going to fall on a woman with a history of depression and drugs, instead of on a criminal justice system that morally, if not legally, surely murdered Sandra Bland.

Backing up: It’s been interesting following conservative news outlets after the Bland case. They’ve been conspicuously quiet this week, holstering the usual gloating backlash of the “He’d be alive today, if he’d just obeyed the law” variety.

After the Garner, Brown and Freddie Gray cases, of course, law-and-order commentators flocked to the blogosphere to explain the secret to preventing police brutality.

It was simple, they explained. There’s no police corruption problem. The real issue is that there are too many people who don’t know how to behave during a car stop. Don’t want to get murdered by police? Be polite!

A writer named John Hawkins took on the subject for TownHall.com in a piece last year carrying the not at all joking headline “How to not get shot by police.” After revealing that his only real experience in this area involved speeding tickets, Hawkins lectured readers that “the first key to not getting shot” is to not think of the police as a threat:

“They’re really not going to randomly beat you, arrest you or shoot you for no reason whatsoever. It’s like a bee. Don’t start swatting at it and chances are, it’s not going to sting you.

“In fact, when a cop pulls you over, you should have your license and registration ready, you put your hands on the steering wheel so he can see them when he arrives, and you say ‘yes, sir’ and ‘no, sir.'”

Want to read more? Got the drop at Rolling Stones . . .