The two scariest things I think about the Bland dashcam video are as follows:
1.) The fact that they had the enormous brass balls to release an obviously edited video makes you wonder just what exactly they are used to getting away with down there that they thought they could do this and no one would notice. It’s stunning, really, as well as horrifying. A DOJ investigation of all the practices down there is warranted, IMHO.
2.) It confirms to everyone that literally anything is a pretext for the murder of black people at the hands of police. I still have yet to figure out why he raced up behind her, why he then pulled her over, and why he decided that because she refused to put out a cigarette in her own god damned car that she needed to go to jail. It really can’t be anything other than the black woman refused to kiss his ass. I mean, he asked her why she was pissed, she told him, and that made him angrier. Why the fuck did he ask? How many loose cannons like this are there out there terrorizing black people?
And this strikes closer to home than many of you think. As many of you know, I am the advisor for a fraternity, and there are a lot of black men in my fraternity. Currently, one of our brothers who you have seen a good bit of, Christion, is living with me. He graduated in May and doesn’t have a great support system, and no family wealth to set him up anywhere or buy him a car, so he is living here, working, trying to get a job, and we are working on saving up enough money for him to get a car so he can have stable transportation for when he gets a good career opportunity. From time to time he drives my car to do things, and I often wonder if, even though we don’t live in the deep south, if some cop is going to fuck with him just for being black.
Additionally, a lot of the brothers have to go to national conferences, and often times our delegation will be if not all black, then three or four black young men in the prime age for being accosted by police. There was a conference in St. Louis in the almost immediate aftermath of Ferguson that they had to go to or our house would face fines from Nationals, and I was a fucking nervous wreck the entire time. I didn’t want them to go and debated whether or not I could afford to personally pay the fines to nationals so they wouldn’t have to, but I couldn’t swing it, so they went. I told them repeatedly- “Do not leave the hotel complex. Do not leave the hotel complex. Do not leave the hotel complex. Always carry your id and stick together, don’t cause any trouble whatsoever.” Even the most innocent of things can get you in trouble in that miserable racist shithole. The cops there seem to shoot young black men for sport and the DA will have their back.
Sometimes, when the conference is somewhere not too far away, like Indianapolis, I will just load everyone into my car and I will drive and drop them off at the conference hotel and then rent a room elsewhere for myself for the weekend, and pick them up and drive them home when the conference is over. That way I don’t have to worry about the driving while black issue.
I remember one time we were driving somewhere, and there was a minor accident while blocking the road ahead- lots of lights and sirens and traffic was at a dead standstill. After about fifteen minutes, I got out of the car, walked up to one of the cops, and asked “What’s going on? Do you need some help? How long are we going to be here? We have places to go.” The cop looked like they hadn’t thought about that, and they started slowly waving us around the accident. The guys couldn’t believe I did that- had the balls to get out of the car and approach a cop, and it wasn’t anything I had even thought about. Me being in danger didn’t even occur to me because all I was thinking about was that I used to be in the Fire Department and could help out or at least get us on our way.
So yeah. Kinda rambling. But I’m just kind of stunned about this whole thing. This is even worse than Garner, I think, because I just can’t think of any justifiable reason for that cop to pull her over and start the stupid and inexcusable chain of events that left her dead. It makes no fucking sense.
Frank McCormick
And, now, the video is gone from YouTube!
Unabogie
He followed her, clearly, for being black. Then he pulled her over for changing lanes to avoid him, which he found “suspicious” (in a George Zimmerman kind of way). After that, he didn’t like her attitude, so he “lit her up” and “threw her ass in jail”, because he could. Does this mean he then murdered her? We don’t have any evidence either way. But someone crudely edited this video, and somehow she ended up dead. This fucker had the power to let her go on her way and he decided to play a power trip.
Fucking fucker.
cokane
dont get so high falutin Coale. West Virginia is basically the south nowadays, a weird ironic twist of history
JPL
@Unabogie: They knew if she got hold of the dashcam video, the department would have a lawsuit. There’s the motive.
gene108
That’s the part I don’t get.
Who the fuck is all sunshine and smiles, when they get pulled for a traffic violation, even if they’ve been going 120 mph in a 25 mph zone and know they’re breaking the law?
Wouldn’t a cop understand, when he’s giving people tickets they are not going to be happy and will be upset?
Makes no damn sense, why he expects anyone to be anything other than upset when getting a traffic ticket.
**************************
There also needs to be a law against cops driving up behind you, fast as hell and tailgating the shit out of you.
If the cop had followed the two second rule, like a normal driver, Bland would not have felt the need to change lanes.
Aggressively tailgating people causes them to change what is otherwise normal driving behavior to either give the aggressive tailgater more space between their cars by speeding up, or pulling over, or doing something else that causes the cop to give out a ticket.
It’s unnerving to have someone ride up on your bumper like that.
Last time I got pulled over, a cop was aggressively tailgating me and I sped up instinctively because I wanted to put space between myself and the cop. I got off with a warning, but if he’d driven like a normal human being, it would not have happened.
Another Holocene Human
DWB is a felony anywhere in the USA. Let’s just get that part straight.
Aleta
Toward the end of the tape, the cop decides that he will (falsely) charge her with assault instead of (I think he said) “resisting.” I assume the assault charge is why her bail amounted $500, keeping her in jail over the weekend as perhaps a lower bail would not have done. A cop meting out punishment should be fired right off the bat.
Another Holocene Human
In fact that DWB shit goes so deep that a Black cop executed a Black suburban dude in a majority Black suburban county about 15 years ago when said dude was parked in his own driveway.
Policing in the US suffers from massive pathologies.
Another Holocene Human
@gene108:
The Supreme Court de Reagan et les Bush cosign that bullshit. Anything really douchy, seemingly illegal, definitely outrageous that cops everywhere have been doing? You can bet there was a Supreme Court case where Clarence Thomas tore up a few Amendments with whoever the other Cons on the court were at the time cheering him on.
Fair Economist
At least we know the cops didn’t actually murder her, because they provided video evidence!
Oh wait…
Admiral_Komack
@Another Holocene Human: Shit, WALKING WHILE BLACK will, at the very least, get you stopped by the police!
nellcote
the video was clearly edited. the cops say it wasn’t edited. now they say they’re releasing an unedited version. WTF???
A professional needs to take a look at that jailhouse video too.
rikyrah
No. no sense at all.
no sense at all.
gene108
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/10/428-million-in-nypd-related-settlements-paid.html
If misconduct by teachers, let us say, cost a city nearly half-a-billion dollars over a 5 year period, we’d have some serious fucking consequences to those in that chosen profession or from any other public sector employee.
But somehow cops are immune to facing consequences of their actions.
Frivolous
Very nice of you, John Cole, to go to so much trouble to help keep your friends safe. I salute you.
Calouste
@gene108: Obviously the Republican solution to that would be to make it harder to sue the police.
rikyrah
Raw Story
@RawStory CNN panel explodes after ex-cop says Sandra Bland died because she was arrogant http://ow.ly/PWPpa
rikyrah
Cole,
not that those young men don’t already know…
but, confirmation that the fears are indeed, not paranoia……….
Origuy
@Fair Economist: Don’t muddy the issues. There are at least two: what happened at the traffic stop and what happened in the jail cell. The dashcam video only addresses the first, and that poorly. Why she died in custody (when she shouldn’t have been there in the first place) needs to be answered too.
Felanius Kootea
@rikyrah: Of course the punishment for arrogance is death. That’s why Donald Trump has been beaten to death by cops.
Randy P
Remember the guy murdered in SC by the cop who shot him in the back? They planted evidence on him, told a completely fictitious story and everybody would have believed it without the video that turned up.
Makes you wonder how many “righteous” shootings are complete fictions doesn’t it?
And what about the guy shot in the Walmart for holding a BB gun? And that 12 year old kid shot by the cop who just pulled up and pulled the trigger? And the cop who pulled the gun on the kids at the pool party?
Didn’t there used to be some training that might have involved assessing a situation to decide whether pulling your gun was necessary, let alone firing it?
Joseph Nobles
In the video, Sandra runs a stop sign. She didn’t cause anyone to stop short or anything. She turns in the opposite direction of the cop and there’s no other car on that lightly traveled road. The cop U-turns at the intersection she just came out of and you can clearly see the stop sign as he does.
The thing is: he never mentions the stop sign to Sandra. He only mentions no signal on lane change. I think he’s teaching her a lesson in knuckling under to the man. She drove through the stop sign with him right there. He clearly takes it as some kind of challenge to his authority or manhood or something. So he’s got to screw with her. He gets her on the no-signal too, so he just says the no-signal thing. Then he can write the ticket for both the stop sign and the no-signal. That’ll teach her, won’t it?
But she’s mouthy. And she doesn’t learn her lesson. She just sits there smoking in her car and cutting her eyes at him and giving him lip. So out of the car she has to come. All he had to do was give her the ticket and move on. He’s got her on the dashcam for both trivial moving violations, so the ticket will hold up in court. But his ego is clearly involved. So he tries to get her out and then he pulls the Taser and then he gets her off-camera to commence the actual arrest.
Being a jerk at a traffic stop is sometimes all a civilian has. But being a jerk behind a badge? We can’t put up with that as a society. Law enforcement is not about propping up some schmuck’s sad about his dick size. And now a woman is dead at the end of all this. It’s disgusting.
Barry
@Fair Economist: “At least we know the cops didn’t actually murder her, because they provided video evidence!
Oh wait…”
Yes, because while it’s easy to loop video with movement and not be spotted, it’s impossible to loop video of an empty hallway without being spotted.
kc
I would worry too about Christion driving your car – if he gets pulled for any reason, and the cop sees the car doesn’t belong to him . . .
I bet if you did a fundraiser to get some money towards buying Christion a car, many of your readers would be happy to chip in.
JosieJ
@Another Holocene Human: Not just a felony, but a capital crime.
James E Powell
Apart from all the obvious wrongness, it’s striking to me that this guy – and apparently his department – have somehow managed to remain oblivious to the last year of national news stories exposing police abuse of African-Americans. No evidence that they thought to keep themselves out of trouble. Somehow, a cop in Waller County completely missed the news coverage of the incident in McKinney, Texas, about a month prior. Nobody in the department thought to say, “Hey, let’s make sure that’s not you and that’s not us on the national news.”
Even knowing that he had a dash-cam, he did a textbook stop of a woman for driving while black. He saw her, did a U-turn and stalked her until he could find a pretext to pull her over. I’ve seen ‘lane change – no signal’ cases. They are almost always a situation where the lane change nearly caused an accident or was otherwise borderline reckless op. This was nothing – not worthy of note unless the cop is stalking her.
Even knowing that he had a dash-cam with audio, he was hyper-hostile and determined to create – not escalate – a confrontation that would result in an arrest.
This situation underlines the necessity for criminal prosecution and incarceration of police who abuse citizens. Nothing less will get the message out.
RaflW
@nellcote:
A.G. Lynch needs to impound the cams, the original data storage devices, and any intermediate computers/devices used to download, touch, retouch, edit, anything involving the arrest and the jailing. Post haste.
Jeebus.
Felanius Kootea
No one gets away with not massaging a law enforcement officer’s ego. Unless, of course, your name is Cliven Bundy. Then you can escalate all you want and get people to point loaded weapons at law enforcement with no repercussions.
Is it normal/routine for industrial strength trash bags to be kept in jail cells?
That’s the other weird thing about this case.
bluefoot
The thing is, staying at the hotel won’t necessarily help either. I’ve had friends have the police get called on them because they were hanging around their hotel and that was somehow cause for suspicion. Just existing is enough to get hassled (or worse) if you’re not white.
What I wonder about is if we (POCs) constantly have to be exemplary and subservient in behavior just so we’re not killed, is it worth it? At what point are we just enabling our own oppression?
I can’t even keep up with the list of things not to do in order not to get killed: don’t wear a hoodie, don’t carry Skittles, don’t walk on the sidewalk, don’t drive, don’t ride a bike, don’t be outside playing in a park, don’t reach for your ID when a cop asks, don’t answer a cop when he asks what’s wrong, don’t ring a doorbell asking for help when you get into an accident, don’t take public transit, don’t…..
boatboy_srq
@gene108:
WORD. My worst driving experiences involve a charcoal grey four-door sedan, and include moments exactly like this. One road trip, two LEO moments; 1) friend taking a turn behind the wheel pulled over for speeding (doing 55 in a 55 zone TYVM) simply because we let the CHP go by; 2) different CHP riding the bumper close enough to read the VIN in the rearview for about 40 miles (apparently because we pulled over and switched drivers). I don’t speed up in those cases: cruise control gets programmed to just under the limit and I let the
arseholeofficer stew. If he gets upset that I’m not speeding, it’s not like he can cite me for any specific law I’m breaking, especially if there’s an open lane or two to the left.@John Cole @Top:
Those Other People need to be put in their place. And if their place is dead in a jail cell well that’s just what happens. Because Black/Brown/Female/Queer/Undocumented/Turbaned/Weird. That’s all the reason necessary. Welcome to the US of A post-9/11, mostly-post-GWoT, and after six and a half years of the Kenyan IslamoFascoSoshulist Usurper’s unConstitutional reign.
NorthLeft12
@JPL:
Not sure who “they” is. The police could care less about any lawsuit, the municipality ends up paying the costs. Which basically means they cut the budget for Parks and Rec, or any other services besides the police force. The individual police officers are almost never held personally accountable for these things.
So I have to ask, who do you think has a motive to cover up the events at the pullover?
elmo
@James E Powell:
The one time I’ve been pulled over for a lane change, no signal, was when I was leaving a bar at one o’clock in the morning. The stop was very obviously a pretext to see if I was drunk, because when I passed the sobriety test easily, he let me go on my way without so much as a warning.
RaflW
@Randy P:
“There are by various estimates anywhere from 270 million to 310 million guns in the United States…” The NRA would vehemently disagree, but I think this is part of the reason cops shoot first and, er, um, plant evidence later (ask questions later is no longer operative, as cops now carry high caliber and upload full clips).
Racism, too, also. No doubt. But the insane proliferation of guns, cop-killer bullets, and deranged (mostly white) people make cops very fearful for their own lives.
Felanius Kootea
@Joseph Nobles: Could you provide a link to the video with the footage you’re describing? All the videos I’ve seen appear to begin with her already pulled over to the side of the road.
Shakezula
@Another Holocene Human: Also shopping, walking, running, sitting on a swing or porch, lying in bed or …
Trentrunner
The editing thing is a red-herring and will turn out to be a technical glitch.
CNN’s ex-cop’s remarks are very, very telling: Fail to show anything but the most obsequious “yassir, nossir,” and you’re “arrogant.”
Which, to him, means the cop is justified is whatever he does afterward.
THIS is the problem. That, and much of white America not giving a shit if black people are killed. It’s almost like it’s something they want.
RaflW
@bluefoot:
Years ago, a coworker of mine at the time said that he and friends new which hotels to stay at that were comfortable for them as black guests. It wasn’t about price, it was that staying in hotels that were too white meant they’d get called for talking too loud in their rooms, by the pool, etc. Why deal with the hassle.
ETA: To your point about enabling oppression, that is big. And I as a white guy do not know. Things have got to change. It’s not your job to change them. Its on us.
Patrick
@RaflW:
Then why aren’t police unions screaming for better gun control laws? It seems like some are asking better laws while some are supporting the NRA.
Barry
@Trentrunner: “The editing thing is a red-herring and will turn out to be a technical glitch.”
Why do you say so?
lowercase steve
“Loose cannon” is not the right word…that conveys that he is just a bad apple. But he is acting according to the de facto policy of a lot of police departments. It is systemic not personal.
Paul in KY
@gene108: That’s 98 million a year!!!! You would think, that in a sane country, with sane leaders, that they would want to rein in these yahoos just for financial reasons alone.
Makes one think that the police are doing just what the powers-that-be want.
Brachiator
You’re a good man, John Cole.
I note your empathy and compassion, because there are not enough words to deal with the horror of what happened to Sandra Bland.
Paul in KY
@Felanius Kootea: 176 times, by most recent count…
Loneoak
Cole, you’re a good man. Those guys are lucky to have you.
greennotGreen
Thank you! I couldn’t believe I was the only one who saw that.
That said, the cop, at least to my hearing, doesn’t mention it. Bland may not have even seen the stop sign, especially if she was in an unfamiliar area, and so, if the cop doesn’t mention, she thinks the stop is BS. She ran a stop sign, she changed lanes without signalling, she did NOT cause this stop to go all the hell. This is on the cop.
aimai
I love you, John Cole. You are a beautiful person and a light to the world.
RaflW
@Patrick:
As you say, some are, some aren’t. The RW gun-fetish frame has been established so firmly, we (and law enforcement) are swimming in it so deeply that I think they just cannot see gun control as viable.
To that end, we have to recognize that this has been a multi-decade, generational push by wingers, the NRA, etc. We are just now at the very start of pushing the pendulum back. We have to do this for Christion, more likely his kids (if he has some someday), TNC’s kids, etc. That’s how long this may take to undo.
greennotGreen
@aimai: Well, at least a flashlight.
And I second the fundraiser to help Christion buy a car. The fact that John Cole and the dogs think he’s a good guy is reason enough. And we do what good we can.
bluefoot
@RaflW: Yeah, exactly. In the 90’s I drove across country with a boyfriend. We were an interracial couple (he was white, me very mixed race), and I could tell you stories of just trying to find places to eat during that trip. His brother who had been stationed in MO had given us the lowdown on places to stay. I remember my boyfriend was seriously taken aback at how I (and his brother) assumed we’d have to put a lot of planning into figuring out our route and where to stay.
We eventually broke up, and part of it was because he couldn’t handle the extra work it took to be with someone not white.
ETA: further on your ETA – I wonder about how much we set up expectations that we’re *supposed* to be subservient in order to exist, and any deviation is being “uppity” or “causing trouble” so then violence/prejudice is “justified”. It’s Jim Crow all over again. Who the f*ck wants to live like that?
Joseph Nobles
@Felanius Kootea: https://twitter.com/ShaunKing/status/623679799492526080
Shaun says no reason in his tweet, but you can see that Bland’s car doesn’t stop and the cop swings around to get the stop sign in the camera.
rikyrah
TruthBeTold
@Big6domino
#IfIDieInPoliceCustody Know that I had a feeling I would. We all do. #SandraBland
milahVerified account
@JamilahLemieux
#IfIDieInPoliceCustody don’t trust any report of me being aggressive, I put my humanity aside in interactions w/ cops to come home to my kid
mtiffany
@gene108:
The floggings will continue until morale improves.
Patrick
@RaflW:
But if the argument is that cops are fearful for their lives, then I would expect pretty much all of the police unions to be demanding much stricter gun control. They aren’t. It tells me volumes.
dmbeaster
@Felanius Kootea: The video from the beginning (talking with prior motorist) is still available at this Houston Chronicle link.
Its not just cars blinking in and out – the “glitch” or “upload error” is more serious than that.
There is an obvious multi-second repeat of the tape starting at 32:38, again at 33:04, at 33:27 and 33:52. It is the same multi-second loop. The white car approaches from the left and turns left (and blinks in and out in some loops) followed by a darker car. An SUV approaches from the opposite direction, and a fourth car approaches from the left, waits for the SUV to clear, and then turns left. This sequence repeats several times, with the blinking car glitch occurring sometimes (but not all) at the beginning of each loop.
During the entire two minute plus time frame, the conversation of the arresting officer with apparently his superior continues without interruption or glitch. What is the alleged upload error or other technical glitch than can cause a multi second repeat of the same scene while the audio continues without interruption?
Brachiator
@RaflW:
And even here is a sad kind of “progress.” A caller to recent public radio program about racism in America noted that when he was a kid he thought his father was cheap because he would drive almost nonstop from their home to their destination to visit relatives. But years later he learned that his father was deliberately bypassing motels and restaurants that would not serve them, or which might subject them to demeaning acts of disrespect.
currants
@RaflW:
YES. And we need to get organized to do it, because everything else is already organized against it.
Richard Shindledecker
And getting the feds to check the recording is of no help at all – feds will say whatever they’re ordered to say – ref. Wen Ho Li. The judge almost blew a gasket when the FBI guy contradicted his own testimony.
dopealope
I think what scares me, and I say this as a middle aged white male, is the utter hopelessness in the situation de-escalating after the officer decided to ramp it up. I could see myself in her place, even with the protections my demographic affords me. It seems like once the cops decide that you need to be alpha-dogged, there is nothing short of abject begging that is going to stop them.
Trentrunner
@dmbeaster: I’d worry if these “edits” were those of omission. These are repetitions. It’s a meaningless glitch, in my judgment. Will change judgment if the evidence changes. :)
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@rikyrah:
Wow. I guess now we know what the new code word for “uppity” is.
someguy
Shit Cole. You’re in West Bygodvirginny. Make all the cracks about the South or abusive cops in NYC you want, but magistrates and sheriffs put white folks in jail for random and arbitrary reasons and ignore federal writs of habeas corpus. Yeah, I feel for Christion. There is racism there as anywhere. But it ain’t all racism. Peoples generally in your state is fucked. And based on the electoral politics, most of ’em like it that way. Crazy.
Chet
@Trentrunner:
It will be interesting to see if the Caroline Small case proves a game-changer. Small was, of course, a white lady.
WaynersT
True Story –
Mid 90’s working in one of those western-themed chain restaurants in the deep south (major city). Sat afternoon working the bar area and 2 cops in uniform come in and start chatting up the other bartender about his tattoos. One cop decides to show us his ‘art’.
He pulled up his short sleeve shirt uniform and there was a big hooded Klansman head tattoo titled “Original Boyz n the Hood”.
The cops and the other bartender laughed, but I felt like someone knocked the wind out of me.
I’ve never really trusted anything a cop says since & I got the hell out of the south.
Tripod
RICO the entire department into oblivion.
Keith G
Ms Bland should not have been pulled over. She should not have been abused by that out of control officer. She should not have been arrested. All that is completely obvious.
I would be very surprised if the video in question was doctored.
Felanius Kootea
@Joseph Nobles: @dmbeaster: Thanks for the short clip and the longer Houston Chronicle link. If his real reason for stopping her was rolling through the stop sign, I wonder why he didn’t mention it to her (he talks instead about failure to signal a lane change) or mention that in his official report. She might not have realized it. I’d take “you just rolled through a stop sign back there” a lot more seriously than “failure to signal a lane change” especially if that lane change was made because the cop was tailgating me. The first (stop sign) would have me contrite, the second annoyed like I was set up to be pulled over.
east is east
John, I never read your post when you were a right winger but I have to say that whatever ephiphany there was, it worked. Great person. Now we need to get you a girlfriend.
Tom F
@gene108: $428 million over 5 years sounds like a lot, until you look at the NYC police budget, which is almost $5 billion a year. So the payouts probably aren’t enough to make them change their ways . . .
Barry
@Keith G: “I would be very surprised if the video in question was doctored.”
Since it’s been proven to have looped and skipped, all while the audio doesn’t, what leads you to that interesting conclusion?
Laertes
@Felanius Kootea:
You’ve put your finger on it. He was trying to provoke her. Everything he did and said was calculated to annoy. His sneering tone, his disrespectful attitude, riding her bumper. Choosing the flimsiest available pretext for pulling her over was just one more carefully chosen provocation.
He wanted to manufacture an incident, and his behavior shows that he’s an expert at doing so.
Joseph Nobles
@Laertes: Absolutely. He couldn’t have known that she wouldn’t signal a lane change when he did the u-turn about the stop sign. But that’s why he turned around. Not saying anything about the stop sign was going to be his trump card on the eventual citation to needle her even more. But then he lost control and started pulling out the Taser…
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Keith G:
Given that Ms. Bland is dead, I would say the department has every reason in the world to try to edit the video and remove anything that’s potentially incriminating.
east is east
@Laertes: You can hear him covering it up in his aw shucks conversation. Geez, this woman was kicking me, think it’s assault. He knows he’s wrong. He has an anger management issue and now this woman is dead. Sickening.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Keith G:
Also, the speculation in one of the threads below is less that the picture of the video was doctored and more that perhaps the radio conversation the cop has with his supervisor was added later. One wonders if those radio conversations are recorded like, say, 911 calls are.
princess leia
@Felanius Kootea: When I was a jail chaplain, they wouldn’t let us hand out ROSARIES for fear that inmates would harm themselves. No way the bag would be in a cell. No Way.
Joseph Nobles
Now Shaun is saying the stop sign is on campus and out of the police officer’s jurisdiction. That seems strange to me, but it does explain why he wouldn’t say anything about the sign during the stop.
https://twitter.com/ShaunKing/status/623921373220618240
rikyrah
@Another Holocene Human:
tell that truth.
Kent
Waller Co. is a creepy place. I’ve driven through there a bunch on the way to Houston and it just feels very time-warped and off. Place gives me the creeps and I’m middle-aged white. Basically it is the last rural area you hit when driving to Houston from Central Texas (Austin or Waco) as you approach the Houston metro from the NW. If you approach Houston from the north you come down I-45 from Dallas and it is all giant freeways and suburban sprawl. Same thing if you approach Houston from the West from San Antonio on I-10. But if you come in from the NW you are on smaller highways not interstate and you pass right through Waller. There is just nothing there, barely even a gas station. I got off at the Prairie View exit once looking for gas and a mini mart and drove all the way into Prairie View A&M looking for something and there was just nothing.
This episode reminded me of the time my black neighbors got pulled over there a few years ago. Fairly affluent professional black family with 2 young kids lives next door to my family here in Waco. He is an environmental engineer who travels a lot and drives a nice car, a late model Mercedes sedan. A few years ago they were driving to Florida for vacation and got pulled over right there in Waller Co. They happened to be traveling with their little yipper dog. A little poodle if I remember. One that barked a lot. Normally my daughter would take care if it when they were gone but this time they took the dog on vacation. So they get pulled over on an empty country road and the cop orders them all out of the car and makes them all sit down on the edge of the road. The husband, wife, and 2 young boys. The dog is barking up a storm inside the car still and the cop goes and opens the back door and the dog bolts off into the corn field on the side of the road. He doesn’t let them look for it or anything. They have to just sit there while he messes around running their IDs or whatever. Finally after 20 minutes or so he comes back, give them back their ID and tells them they were free to go and that they had been pulled over because they matched the description of some other suspect. Obviously they were just driving a nice car through Waller while black. They got pulled over without even the pretext of an unsignalled lane change.
By the time the cop let them go it was starting to get dark and they spent about 1/2 hour looking for and calling their little dog and couldn’t find it and then decided that they really just needed to get the hell out of others instead of wandering around in random corn fields in the dark. So the dog never was found.
Anyway, that is my Waller Co. story. I expect a lot of Texans have similar tales. That place is a blemish and I hope the DOJ indicts the whole nasty lot of them.
Summer
Driving home today I watched a cop pull up close behind someone and then zig around that car and then zag another car. Without using his signal lights either time and in tight driving conditions. I was going 60 in a 55 zone and he was pulling away from me. No flashing lights.
So I sped up and got his car number and called it in. Like the commenter said above, as a society we can’t tolerate jerks using their badges as cover.
aarrgghh
as far as i can tell, bland was arrested, tried and executed for NOT BEING A MODEL CITIZEN WHILE BLACK.
Archon
Other people have mentioned this and I personally have anecdotal evidence to support it but one factor the media isn’t talking about is rampant steroid abuse among police officers.
So we have a whole bunch of roided up police officers trying to look like Navy Seals or football players in an country where black peoples guilt and propensity towards violence is presumed. It’s a really bad combination.
celticdragonchick
@Kent:
The cop was slacking. The current fad is blowing the dog away (including miniature yappers) and claiming it was a threat.
Kent
BTW. I can’t tell from my cellphone screen but is she driving with IL plates? I can’t zoom my cellphone in close enough to tell and I’m not in front of a computer. But if I had to guess I would think that this cop had a special kind of hostility for driving through Waller Co. as some kind of outside agitator Northern black woman.
That part of East Texas is like that. They have almost as much hatred for Yankee outsiders as they do for blacks. And if you are both, look out.
mtiffany
@aarrgghh:
A commenter in another thread made that same argument, but was being for-realsies straight-up serious. Comments carried a subtext of a total hardon for submission to authority — I think maybe specifically men in uniform. I swear if it was mandatory for people to indulge their sexual kinks then 99% of all the authoritian, domineering, sadistic bullshit in this country would dry up overnight.
RaflW
@Laertes: Yes. The officer should have his arrest record pulled to look for patterns. I would not be surprised if he has above average “resisting” or “aggressive behavior” tags.
Keith G
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Ms. Bland died while in custody of the Waller County Sheriff’s Dept.
The traffic stop was conducted by a patrol officer of the Texas Department of Public Safety (ironically enough). It is possible that a supervisory officer, or more than likely several supervisory DPS officers decided to bet their pensions and freedom on successfully doctoring important evidence. The evidence would be of the very serious misconduct of a single junior patrolman who really fucked up. They would be betting their future that they could pull this off and fool the FBI and other forensic investigations. Or, they could just walk away and let the pus bag simmer in his own fluids.
And while I am not certain, I imagine that there is a chain of custody of such evidence as the official copy of this video…..
Yeah could have been tampered with, but as I said above, I would be surprised if it was.
SoupCatcher
@Archon:
I’d really like to see testing done. Any time a LEO uses his or her equipment – handcuffs, taser, gun, whatever – they should be peeing in a cup.
My dad retired from four decades working on the railroad. Any accident during the shift and the entire crew was filling cups.
princess leia
@Kent: Cruelty on so many levels. Wow.
Rafer Janders
@Archon:
I lift weights in a gym that’s used by a lot of cops and other law enforcement officers. For sure half of them are roided up. Big swollen muscles, acne and receding hairlines — it’s a sure tell.
David Parsons
@aarrgghh:
ftfy
bupalos
The issue here goes well beyond ethnicity or profiling. It almost certainly played a role here but I could see this happening to a “white” person too. Less likely but definitely not out of the question.
The deepest part of the problem with the cops is just the authority thing and completely not understanding how demoralizing and inhuman the system can be. Again that surely gets worse with ethnicity thrown in there, and it gets way worse when you get an ego like this cops mixed in, but it’s true to varying degrees for anyone. I pretty much expect that Bland did kill herself, probably a mix of her existing penchant for depression, stewing about how this ridiculously unjust incident was going to impact her new employment, what it implied about her place in society, and just a couple days of mindless isolation in a cage where you come to doubt what the rules really are.
I had a teensy taste of it and it’s discombobulating.
I’m a terrible t-dotter and i-crosser, and in Ohio they used to send out random letters to motorists requiring them to send proof of insurance to Columbus. I apparently discarded a couple notices without opening them because I assumed it was just a reminder to early-register my plates or something. So one day I’m driving happily to work early like 6:30, and I’m pulled over to get warned for having one headlight out, and here my driver’s license comes up suspended. I pretty sure this is all a mistake and he needs to check again or get more info, but he’s not hearing anything I’m saying. He’s acting like a machine and annoyed that I don’t just help him operate more efficiently. He’s just getting testy that I’m acting like I’m a worker that needs to make a meeting and not a criminal that needs to be “processed.” I’m removed from the car, cuffed, forced to sit there while a wrecker comes and tows my car off to god knows where (no, you cannot call someone to come get it even though they are closer than AAA, I can’t let it sit here…). Long story short I spend over 14 hours in a concrete floored cell that is about 58 degrees (no shoes, can’t have you garroting anyone with the laces or hanging yourself with your tie ha ha ha…) while a prisoner transfer gets processed through the holding cell.
No contact with anyone other than the other prisoners (who are nice and cordial btw.) No explanation of how this works. The only interaction with any of the administrators that are right there outside the glass-walled cell studiously ignoring us is to pass a tray of unbelievably cheap unhealthy crap for lunch and dinner. Then when the transfer is done 12 hours later and they can’t figure out why the cell isn’t empty now at the end of the day, they’re like oh…you’re in here.
Though wracked with stress about a client meeting that was being inexplicably missed, and angry that I had done nothing and was the victim of a mistake, I remained outwardly completely calm and courteous throughout. But for anyone who can’t do that (and I think that probably would be the majority of the population, just with the tweak of a couple variables) I could definitely see how that could go from bad to worse in a hurry; when you don’t actively help the machine chew you up, it starts chewing harder and getting nastier.
The thing is completely inhuman and really just sitting there for hours makes you question what the rules really are, and start thinking funny.
My worry here is this is all going to be forgotten when they can’t find evidence of murder because no one person actually strung her up. But I do believe the system assaulted her and caused her death. The odds are there isn’t any more than that, but we shouldn’t really need any more than that.
gelfling545
I don’t live in the south either, deep or otherwise, yet a few years back when I lent my car to a friend of my daughter’s to go to a job interview she was stopped & the car impounded when she was pulled over for driving while black in a local suburb. I had to go to court and the reason the gave was that it wasn’t her name on the registration. When I, an old white lady, walked in you could almost hear the town attorney go “oh, shit”.
Same young woman had been a student at a Catholic girl’s school in the same town. Her mom was pulled over more than once when dropping her off or picking her up & asked what her reason was for being in the town. Of course, WNY is one of the most racially prejudiced areas of the North East. Disgraceful.
A guy
I’ve represented clients beaten by cops. From age 72 to 40. One pulled out of view of the barracks camera and beaten while hand cuffed. They were all white.
Pogonip
I don’t understand the incident at all. Why would the cop risk his job over a petty traffic stop? Why would Sandra Bland risk her life over same? Forget the cigarette, cite her and go; stop arguing with the fool cop, take your ticket and go. So many people these days seem to be on a hair trigger. Somebody earlier mentioned a lot of cops are juicing these days; that’s really scary! Someone else mentioned East Texans don’t like outsiders; I hope I never have to go there if they are all that mean.
Someone was wondering if it’s legal for a cop to order you out of your car during a traffic stop; yes, it is. Pennsylvania vs. Somebody-or-other, late 70’s. I know of it because the Supreme Court decided it right about the time I was starting to do lots of driving on my own. In any case, it’s not a good idea to argue with someone who is legally empowered to kill you. Do what he says and then find a lawyer once you are safely bailed
Out.
I assume anyone I encounter is a nut who may erupt violently until I know the party well enough to be sure that’s not so. This applies to cops, little old ladies, you name it. I encourage everyone to adopt this safety practice. Had Sandra Bland known about it, she might be with us today. You will feel self-conscious at first, but in a week or so it’ll be second nature.
Brachiator
@Archon:
I don’t think the issue is roids, or even bullies being allowed to become cops and allowed to run roughshod over citizens.
Police are agents of white racism, given the assignment to contain and control the unwanted Other, blacks and Latinos. Here is what is happening in an area of Southern California.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-antelope-valley-sheriff-20150429-story.html
In the Texas case, the cop seemed to check out Sandra Bland’s license plate, confirmed that she was out of state, and then had her sit for minutes, no doubt increasing her anxiety, while he checked for something. And then, he escalated the situation by demanding that she get out of the car without telling her that he was writing a ticket or giving her any other reason for his demands. From this point on, everything went to hell.
It is all about control and intimidation. And the patterns of behavior are approved by the communities in which the cops serve.
NCSteve
I swear, at this point, it’s not the cops who sincerely believe that the slightest “arrogance,” mouthiness, lack of fulsome, bootlicking subservience, and instant compliance with contradictory demands before they’re even made justifies a false arrest and booking, a beating or even death. It’s unforgivable, but I can at least trace the path by which a belief that the slightest disrespect is the first step down a slippery slope that ends in dead cops could be come hardened dogma among cops after these last thirty years of militarization and “warrior mentality” training.
No, the thing that just really makes me want to vomit are the vast number of authoritarian shitkickers who show up on every comment page gleefully blaming the victim for his or her death and giving every indication of approval of the idea that anyone who dares act like he or she thinks she’s a citizen of a more or less free nation under the rule of law when interacting with cops deserves to die. The one thing these episodes bring out clearly is the full extent to which there are authoritarians among us who dream of being allowed to don jackboots and a uniform and stomp on the members of whichever minority the the one-party state has designated to be the official scapegoat.
Those people are the real problem. They’re the enablers who create the political space necessary for this shit to continue going on in the plain light of day.
RaflW
@Tom F: 1.7% of the annual budget is a lot of money. Just ask any department head of even a midsize company that has to trim 1.7% of their budget. What to cut would typically not be easy to decide.
RaflW
LA Times has a newish piece up on whether cops can order you out of your car (short answer: yes). But check this out:
Yes, this. Many cops have made a switch from a cooperative approach to yelling orders and freaking out when the
intended victimsuspect does not fully comply in 0.0005 seconds. We have a deep, systemic cop problem.phein55
@Tom F: It might be if it came out of their retirement fund.
sigaba
Hey I’ve never seen a reproduction of the dashcam with a timestamp, usually you’d expect that to be there. Has anyone seen one with the timecode and TOD burned in?
The FBI is reviewing the originals, the local police say the error was caused by issues uploading it to Youtube, which is believable. Youtube is atrocious. Also in this article they have a quote from the state senator who’s been on their ass basically saying the Youtube vid wasn’t the one he saw, and if he’s willing to go on the record with that I buy it.
Pogonip
@bupalos: I quite agree. The system’s a mess. One reason I wish everyone could learn my old school’s motto: Go Home Alive.
And then sue that jurisdiction!
I got one of those insurance letters when I lived in Ohio too, and was highly annoyed, because right about that time a colleague was battling her insurance company after an uninsured drunk with stolen plates totaled her car. Ohio doesn’t take drunk driving seriously, but they sure love security theatre and hassling cotizens!
Pogonip
@RaflW: Damn right he escalated. Both of them seemed to be spoiling for a fight, but HE was on the clock; he should do his fight-picking on his own time.
I wonder why he was so preoccupied with the cigarette anyway? I love strangers with cigarettes, myself; that’s one hand I know exactly what it’s doing!
Bruce Webb
@Trentrunner: “I’d worry if these “edits” were those of omission. These are repetitions. It’s a meaningless glitch”
Well if you have repetitions of your video track with an uninterrupted audio track that implies overdubbing. Yeah you are not seeing “omissions”, you are seeing what is running on top of those omissions. It is not the omission it is the commission.
Tenar Darell
@RaflW: I think you are unintentionally leaving something out. If it were really the case, that the prevalence of guns are what makes cops so scared during their public interactions, then why the frak are cops scared of black women driving alone? Not just a rhetorical question: guessing that the statistical likelihood is that white men from 18-45 most likely to be armed, right?
So, probable that cops trained to view black/brown skin as more threatening than actual armed men, and to target anyone of color for traffic stops because easy to get revunue from those with little social capital. Does it happen in academy, during training, before they ever take the police exam, all of it…not really sure. We should be studying them to find out. No laws against studying public health consequences of law enforcement run amuck, yet.
(Apologize. Apparently, I lose grammar when overtired).
Tenar Darell
@Pogonip: Ex-smoker nicotine envy hair trigger? (Some days, I want to crawl into the second-hand smoke, some days, it is disgusting).
PIGL
@Aleta: I say it’s felony murder. He committed what I assume must be serious crimes, and she is now dead. End of story.
The presence of officers like this guy establishes, to my mind, that there are no good cops.
Pogonip
@Tenar Darell: I don’t know (never smoked) but I do know that guy’s not likely to make it to retirement. He was incredibly reckless. We were watching that video with amazement.
Oh well. When somebody does nail him it’ll be his own darn fault!
PIGL
@greennotGreen: I’m in for $20. John is a much better man than I, and I’m prepared now and then to back up my words with cash, to further his good works in the world.
Bonnie
I think what I saw of the video of Ms. Bland’s arrest the cop was totally belligerent, yelling, and rude. Police should be required to be every bit as courteous as they expect the person they stopped to be. However, something that never gets discussed, which I think is a very important point, is that it is not easy (perhaps even impossible) for an average human being to commit suicide. I also think it is extraordinarily difficult for even your average depressed human being to kill themselves. Hurting yourself in any way is difficult and killing yourself without being severely depressed and suicidal, I think is just not possible. I act like a baby when I accidentally get a paper cut. It also seems like an iffy thing if I were to be thinking about taking a garbage bag and hanging myself with it. I would probably spend hours thinking of all the reasons not to do it if my mind did wander in that direction. Suicide just isn’t that easy to do for any of us.
Debbie
If for no other reason, the cop should be charged with a depraved heart for saying, “Good” after she said she had epilepsy.
LAC
@NCSteve: good comment.
shorter me … Shut the fuck up, poconip. The excuse making is vile.
Steve Rank
Let’s worry about black people killing black people. You all focus on cops. You try being a cop with all these criminals out there. They pull people over that they think are criminals. I’m a white man with long hair and tattoos. Do cops look at me different. Yes. But I understand why. Most people that look like me are criminals. Act right and there’s a good chance you won’t get shot. Wake up America.
TooManyJens
I’ve put dozens of videos on YouTube, and while their uploader is sometimes uncooperative, I’m not buying that it could make the video skip and loop and loop and skip again, all while the audio continued on as smooth as silk.
TriassicSands
Every time we see one of these dashcam videos we see what really lousy police work looks like. It’s a difficult job and the police have to be prepared to deal with people who are upset, annoyed, irritated, and just plain angry. But time and again we see police officers who escalate situations that don’t require agressive police tactics and behavior.
Ms. Bland was irritated. So what. Why should that concern the cop? Is there a rule that says that people have to smile when they’re receiving tickets — especially when the justification for the ticket is so flimsy?
There is probably a job that this cop could perform adequately to earn a living. But it isn’t policing.
Once again people are asking, “Was he justified?” As usual, that’s the wrong question. The right question is “Was what he did necessary?” And, as usual, the answer is “no.”
TriassicSands
Make sure Christian knows where the registration and insurance information are.
Barry
@Keith G: “The traffic stop was conducted by a patrol officer of the Texas Department of Public Safety (ironically enough). It is possible that a supervisory officer, or more than likely several supervisory DPS officers decided to bet their pensions and freedom on successfully doctoring important evidence. The evidence would be of the very serious misconduct of a single junior patrolman who really fucked up. They would be betting their future that they could pull this off and fool the FBI and other forensic investigations. Or, they could just walk away and let the pus bag simmer in his own fluids.”
First, what part of ‘cops stick together’ don’t you understand?
It’s clear by now that 99% of police officers will cover for bad ones, even if the bad ones are f*cking up badly and are a risk to the good ones.
Second, the video loops and jumps, while the audio doesn’t. The Texas DPS posted that *after* Bland’s death was a nationwide issue.
You’re also assuming that extremely corrupt people don’t f*ck up, especially when they get away with sh*t.
It’s clear now that even when these guys get caught doing bad stuff, it’s the exception that they are punished.
Barry
@Pogonip: ” In any case, it’s not a good idea to argue with someone who is legally empowered to kill you. Do what he says and then find a lawyer once you are safely bailed ”
No. I’m sick and tired of people supporting whatever the police do.
Barry
@Steve Rank: And another authoritarian crawls out of the cesspool……..
Rafer Janders
A good cop who covers for a bad cop….is a bad cop himself.
LAC
@Steve Rank: and the shut the fuck up button is yours to hit too, Charlie Daniels .
Paul in KY
@Rafer Janders: Up here in the KY, you’ve probably read about the big Pappy Van Winkle theft. That’s been solved & one of the perps was trading steroids with a cop for bottles of Pappy Van Winkle.
Paul in KY
@Steve Rank: If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen, dipshit.
Aleta
@Rafer Janders:
A good cop who covers for a bad cop….is a bad cop himself.
And (or) he may be a cop who is himself afraid of, or being threatened by, the bad cop.
Aleta
About Ms. Bland being at fault for yelling and swearing at the officer:
If yelling and swearing at an officer is a legal offense, then write that up on the ticket. Apply a fine if a judge agrees. A police officer’s job is to witness and write up an offense, maybe arrest. The purpose of arrest is to bring the person in front of a judge.
It’s not the cop’s job to decide if someone is guilty, not their job to deliver any punishment. That’s where you lose me if you say that police were justified in choking Eric Garner to death or that Ms. Bland’s speech and actions caused her restraint, arrest, and violent treatment. She never threatened the cop’s safety; he and any cops who harm POC who struggle/run are delivering physical punishment and deciding guilt. That should be a very serious offense, and cause for firing or intensive retraining, not just desk assignment or suspension.
I know that forbidding “excess force” is supposed to prevent abuse, but obviously it doesn’t, even if there are cameras, witnesses or trials. Cameras are not preventing deaths.
It seems like protocol and laws for police behavior must become much more precise and codified. Less training at the gun range and MMA dojo and a lot more drills in communication, behavior, anger management and impulse control. I’d like to know how often and rigidly police are drug tested, and what the rules are for steroids and medications that affect impulse control and affect.
Secondly, Sandra Bland only began yelling and swearing when the cop crossed the line to force her out of her car and take charge of her body. Making noise can be an attempt at self-protection to attract witnesses. It’s like the body begins to emit an alarm, which can go off very quickly if someone has PTSD or previous abuse.
The advice to POC who are stopped by police while driving says, try to pull into a gas station or anywhere with witnesses. I believe she was trying to protect herself by attracting attention and verbalizing what was happening.
Aleta
@Aleta:
The idea of submitting and remaining quiet until one is safely bailed out seems logical only for those of us who trust that we won’t be harmed in jail, and that the bail and court systems will probably let us go.
J R in WV
@Steve Rank:
You say “Act right and there’s a good chance you won’t get shot. Wake up America. ”
This shows that you are a sick son of a bitch… “a good chance you won’t get shot.” There should be no fucking chance at all that anyone gets shot who doesn’t pull a real actual weapon!!
People who don’t commit a crime shouldn’t ever even meet a cop!
The people who are telling us they will be amazed if the video is doctored, you people are dazed and confused, or too stupid to be allowed out on their own! Video doesn’t repeat itself all on its own, ever. It takes a human being using an editing toolset to make video do anything but run from the beginning to the end!
I know this by virtue of working in professional TV production in the past, and by editing video myself, on my own equipment.
To make a video that looks as stupid as this one needs a thoughtless amateur fucking with official video, so detached from reality they don’t even realize how wrong stuff flickering in and out of existence over and over will look to everyone, everyone but republican sycophants of the brutal abusive police system.
In an ideal world there would be a chain of custody document for every item related to this incident, and photos of before and after the custody was transferred from one officer to another. Equipment used, installed cameras and recorders, portable laptops, everything. But I bet there isn’t anything like a professional chain of custody document for anything.
No medical care, serious head injury, that’s murder right there, without any other events considered. Phony arrest, just icing on the cake of crap.