Washingtonpost.com:

According to newly released police video, a Texas trooper threatened Sandra Bland with a Taser when he ordered her out of her vehicle during a traffic stop on July 10, three days before she was found dead in a county jail.

Bland — a 28-year old African American woman — was stopped for failing to signal while changing lanes, but the routine traffic stop turned confrontational after the officer, Brian Encinia, ordered Bland to put out her cigarette.

This is a frightening story.  The police officer seems to want to escalate the situation until Sandra Bland does become hysterical.   He was demeaning and rude where it wasn’t really necessary.

Why did Sandra Bland die?  We may never know.  It doesn’t sound like she should have ever been arrested.

How very sad.  Why was she kept so long?  Nothing in this case makes one bit of sense.

15 Thoughts to “Sandra Bland: This should never have happened”

  1. Starryflights

    Utterly outrageous. Black lives matter

  2. There are also cops who just bully women. Let’s not forget that Sandra Bland was also a woman.

  3. Lyssa

    She ran a stop sign. She was rude. He didn’t handle it right. He was rude. Cops always ask smokers to put out their cigarettes when pulled over. Standard practice.

    She should not have been jailed. The cop didn’t make that call by himself. So there are more involved.

    You’re right, nothing makes sense here.

    1. Why are people asked to put out their cigarettes? I did not know that.

  4. blue

    Yep, let’s question and then blame the police first without seeing the whole tape or awaiting the investigation. Gee, its a good thing we have not seen that before this year. She died 3 days later, I really do not understand why the stop and arrest- right or wrong – is even a part of the story.

    1. The arrest shouldn’t have been made. On what grounds should she have been arrested?

  5. Furby McPhee

    #BlackLivesMatter

    #SayHerName

    The protest at Netroots Nation that so many people here were against was part of the #SayHerName effort to give voice to the women and girls killed by police:

    “When we wear the hoodie, we know that we’re embodying Trayvon. When we hold our hands up, we know we’re doing what Mike Brown did in the moments before he was killed. When we say ‘I can’t breathe,’ we’re embodying Eric Garner’s final words,” Gilmer said. “We haven’t been able to do the same thing for black women and girls. We haven’t carried their stories in the same way.”

    There is also

    #IfIDieInPoliceCustody

  6. blue

    Moon-howler :
    The arrest shouldn’t have been made. On what grounds should she have been arrested?

    I don’t know and neither do you, but if she was high as reported, if she was smoking as reported, if as reported the officer thought she was trying to burn him, if she refused to exit the vehicle when ordered to do so as reported and seen on the video, and if she otherwise gave him lip as reported, you might have a pretty good idea why she was detained and then arrested. Try it and see what will hapen to you here in PWC. The real question is why the reflexive assumption that the cops did wrong?

    The real question, as Furby notes, is how and why a protest movement can be based on a series of demonstrable and investgated lies and falsehoods – and then influence other people to act stupidly.

    1. I am not justifying any movement. I just don’t think this woman should be dead.

      I have not heard she was high. Additionally, I wouldn’t necessarily exit a vehicle. that’s a good way to get killed by the 29 stalker. Not saying I wouldn’t. I would have to be certain the “cops” really were police officers.

  7. Lyssa

    Behavior matters. In court bad behaviour during a legal process results in contempt charges.
    When being presented before a magistrate, behaviour matters and can land you in jail. She ran a stop sign, we don’t know what the officer found out after running tags…. I’m not justifying anything because there are not enough facts but you can’t behave badly then claim abuse or abuse your authority. Let’s get all the facts first.

    Officers don’t like snorting smoke and there have been situations where officers have been “stabbed” with a lit cigarette.

    1. If I still smoked, I would put my cigarette in the ash tray but put it out? I would find that over the top. I don’t think an officer should be in my car without a warrant.

      Maybe I am just a little touchy because I have had 2 bad cop experiences. One was with the infamous Trooper Carter. I was a passenger and he was a rude pig.

  8. Scout

    The woman was hostile, but the police officer should have had the good judgment to defuse the situation, not to let it escalate. It should never happen that a failure to signal a lane change lands a citizen in jail, let alone hanged in her cell.

    So many times, these are just head-butting contests, and the officer has all the high cards. There ought to be a way to instill pride in the police force by being able to let the hot air out of these situations.

    I saw a video last spring of a Los Angeles police officer doing a masterful job of shutting down and confiscating a drone from a guy who was overflying a major civic festival. The drone flyboy was a bit of a provocateur, who argues that he has the right to fly his camera drones everywhere. The police officer was intelligent, resourceful, polite, well-prepared, and managed to get the drone down and away from the guy through a good natured, but firm statement of the applicable law. He probably could have played the situation so he would have ended up “lighting the guy up”. Instead he played it masterfully to let the pressure out of the situation. We need to see more of that. There are probably thousands of police officers who are doing that every day. Let’s see some of that video. It’s out there.

  9. Lyssa

    Don’t disagree – she ran a stop sign first – not just a signal change….again none of this makes sense yet. Of course de-escalation is the cops job. lot of judgement happening before the facts. Did she have any kind of record? What’s his history?

    1. All cops are human beings. They have the same stresses the rest of us have, therefore, they are subject to lapses in judgement, losing tempers, etc. Most are well trained and do a far better job of controlling these things than the average bear.

      However, there are a few rotten apples. A close encounter with someone like Trooper Carter is living proof. We were lucky, my son wasn’t a lone woman trying to get out of a DUI. He wasn’t asked to pay off the officer with sexual favors like some people had been. However, the trooper was rude, disrespectful and totally out of line with me, the passenger (not sexual but nasty and rude). I never reported him because I thought it would make things go worse on my kid. Started off as broken tail light.

      I should have reported him.

  10. Emma

    @Moon-howler If anyone deserves a good dose of bad karma, it’s “Buck” Carter, that lying sack of crap. I had my own run-in with him back in the day. He should be behind bars.

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