A week and a half ago Sandra Bland was pulled over in a routine traffic stop in Waller County Texas, arrested, and put in jail there. A few days later she was dead. Some think that she was murdered by the police while in custody. Others think she killed herself.
Here’s my question. Is this a big story or a little one? I think it’s a sad story; I don’t have any question about that but is it a big, important story?
My take: better work on the part of the arresting officer could have defused the situation before it reached the point of his arresting the woman. Did it make a difference that Sandra Bland was black? That the arresting police officer wasn’t black? There’s a lot of poor police work out there and always will be.
It is a little bit of a big story. I don’t usually watch these, but I did watch this one. The guy clearly egged her on. From the very beginning he kept asking her why she looked irritated. Getting pulled over in Texas for not singling a lane change? I lived there for just under a year, but the wife for about 8. As she said, using your turn signal is a sign of weakness. Why did the cop come racing up on her anyway? The whole thing looks like a routine this guy has worked out to first scare people into changing lanes, then harass them just because they look upset. Ordering her to put out her cigarette? Why? Under what law? Then ordering her out o fate car just because she wouldn’t put it out? Why? As you said, we have a lot of bad policing. However, it seems pretty clear that if some cops perceive you are in the wrong group, they have permission to behave any way they want.
I seriously doubt the cops killed her. That should not be the focus of the story. It is another case of bad work, a woman who should never have been arrested (he could have just given her the ticket) and should never have been in jail. The cop should be fired. If he has a conscience, this should torture him forever.
Steve
My wife experienced much the same thing when she was in grad school. Police officer forced her to change lanes illegally and then ticketed her for it. She spent the night in a holding cell. And that was in Illinois and in a very liberal town.
The difference is that she treated the police officer with substantial respect so she wasn’t wrestled to the ground. Ordering someone to step out of a car is policy in many jurisdictions. The officer had the authority to do that—there’s plenty of case law to support that.
In my wife’s case she had other people in the car, they backed up her story, and when the case went to court not only was the charge thrown out but the judge reprimanded the police officer (which is not all that common).
I know that my wife didn’t interpret that as police officers being prejudiced against white girls in their twenties but as that police officers do dumb things and exceed their authority. Our choice is not between whether we have abuse of power or not but whether we give some people the authority to enforce the laws and carry guns on our behalf or not. Once we’ve made that decision, we know they’ll abuse the power. That’s baked in.
I agree with you. I wouldn’t want to be a police officer.
For a good and informed critique of the incident see here.
She moved out of the way of a speeding police officer. It’s now obvious that he was speeding so he could induce her to shift lanes in a hurry or to break the speed limit herself. I.e., he simply wanted to amuse himself by giving someone a ticket.
Ho ho ho, what fun!
And now she’s dead. Too bad, but that’s what happens when you’re guilty of driving while black.
I’d say he was acting illegally, and as a result the woman is dead.
That’s criminal homicide.
I’d prosecute him for murder.
“Once we’ve made that decision, we know they’ll abuse the power.”
We know this, but refuse to do anything about it. That is the big story. Half of our country will defend the police no matter what they do. I think it is pretty clear that the police are more likely to behave badly towards minorities. I suspect some of this is racism, but most of it is just because they can get away with it. You see the same behaviors in poor rural areas also. The other sad part here is that other police tend to defend these behaviors no matter what the offending officer has done.
Steve