[Sandra] Bland was a graduate of Willowbrook High School in Villa Park, Illinois, where she ran track and played volleyball, The Chicago Tribune reported. She was also a varsity cheerleader and part of the marching band. As a member of the high school’s World Languages Honor Society, she was required to have at least an A average, according to the newspaper.
Bland recently worked on the administrative staff of a food service equipment and supplies dealer in Illinois, according to the Tribune. She and her family were members of DuPage African Methodist Episcopal Church, where her funeral will be held.
…
Bland was taking a new job at Prairie View A&M University in Texas. She had graduated from the historically black college in 2009 and was returning as a student ambassador, according to family members.
“To know Sandy was to love her,” said Sharon Cooper, one of Bland’s four sisters.
“She was someone who was extremely spontaneous, spunky, outgoing, truly filled with life and joy. When you think through the circumstances that have been shared with us to this point, it is unimaginable and difficult for us to wrap our minds around the Sandy that we knew – for this to be characteristic of her.”
…
Sandra Bland, like many people her age, regularly voiced opinions about racism and other topics on social media.
The 28-year-old posted about going natural with her hair, the “Black Lives Matter” movement, and even offered a “shout out” to a girl who handed her a bottle of water after a John Legend concert.
On Facebook, using the #SandySpeaks hashtag, she would monologue about police brutality and the plight of African Americans.
“Being a black person in America is very, very hard,” she said in a video posted in April. “At the moment black lives matter. They matter.”
Her last tweet, dated June 18, offered prayers for the nine people gunned down by a young white man a day earlier during a Bible study meeting at the historically black Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina (Sanchez, 1, 4-5, 6).
Bland talked about black-on-black crime. She blamed racism on both black and white people, saying both groups needed to make more friends across racial lines. She also cheerfully referred to the black people watching her videos as “kings” and “queens.” She was dedicated to educating herself and others — she recorded one video from the DuSable Museum of African American History in Chicago, radiant with pride and enthusiasm.
“Sandy is gonna speak whenever I see something wrong,” Bland informed her audience (McDonald 3).
Ms. Bland was one of five sisters who grew up in a Chicago suburb before she left for Texas to attend Prairie View A&M University [located in rural west Texas] near Hempstead, the state’s self-proclaimed watermelon capital. She graduated with a degree in agriculture in 2009, returned to Illinois, and had come back to Texas to start a job at her alma mater when the fateful traffic stop occurred (Montgomery 4 “It”).
[Bland was pulled over near the campus on July 10, 2015, for failing to signal a lane change. Trooper Encinia later explained that he had followed Bland to check on “the condition of the vehicle, such as the make, the model, had a license plate, any other conditions.” She is overheard on the state trooper’s dash camcorder saying that he had approached her from behind at a high speed causing her to get out of his way. The trooper’s dash cam video allows us to see and hear most of what transpired during the stop and arrest. Using her cell phone, Bland recorded 37 seconds of her encounter with Officer Encinia. Near the end of the roadside confrontation, a bystander, from a distance, recorded briefly some of what transpired.]
The trooper, Brian T. Encinia, approached Ms. Bland’s car, took her information and returned to his vehicle to write out a citation. The newly surfaced video [Bland’s recording] begins when the trooper walks back to her car with the ticket.
Trooper Encinia asked if Ms. Bland was O.K. and told her she seemed “very irritated.” She said she was, because she was being written up simply for moving out of the trooper’s way.
The trooper then asked her to put out the cigarette she was holding, and she refused. The encounter quickly escalated from there.
The trooper ordered Ms. Bland out of the car, but she refused. He shouted that he would “yank you out” and tried to do so, but she resisted. He pulled out a stun gun and yelled, “I will light you up.”
At that point, Ms. Bland got out of the car. The newly released video ends there, but the encounter remained heated; before long, Ms. Bland was shouting insults and profanities and the trooper had her in handcuffs (Hassan 2-3).
In part of the encounter that occurred out of the camera’s view, a scuffle could be heard, and Ms. Bland indicated that she was on the ground. “You just slammed me, knocked my head into the ground,” she said.
Addressing Trooper Encinia with an expletive, she said, “I got epilepsy.”
Trooper Encinia responded, “Good.”
In the affidavit, Trooper Encinia described Ms. Bland as “combative and uncooperative” and said she had begun swinging at him with her elbows after she was removed from the car, handcuffed and forcibly subdued, according to his arrest report.
“Bland was placed in handcuffs for officer safety,” Trooper Encinia said in the arrest affidavit. “Bland began swinging her elbows at me and then kicked my right leg in the shin. I had a pain in my right leg and suffered small cuts on my right hand.”
The affidavit was released by the Waller County district attorney’s office, and the Department of Public Safety released the dashboard camera’s video of the arrest (Montgomery 4-5 “Threatened”).
After
the arrest, Encinia told authorities that he feared for his life and
didn’t know what Bland could grab inside her car and purse.
“My safety was in jeopardy at more than one time,” Encinia told investigators (Collister 3).
Ms. Bland was booked and placed in a housing area for women in the one-story Waller County Jail. Three days later, on July 13, a guard making rounds found her hanging in her 15-by-20-foot cell.
Waller County officials said she was found in a “semi-standing position,” with a plastic trash-can liner roped around her neck and affixed to a U-shaped metal hook overhead. Ms. Bland was pronounced dead at 9:16 a.m. The authorities ruled her death a suicide.
Two of her jailers left the Waller County sheriff’s office shortly afterward (Hassan 4).
Waller County Sheriff R. Glenn Smith said Bland told the county jailer during her intake that she had previously tried to kill herself.
Authorities released jail intake forms late Wednesday that appear to show Bland answering “yes” to the following questions: Have you ever been very depressed? Do you feel this way now? Have you had thoughts of killing yourself in the last year? Have you ever attempted suicide?
But, later, on a different sheet, the word “no” appears next to questions about mental illness and attempted suicide. A reason for the apparent discrepancy was not immediately clear.
Separately, an inmate who was held in a cell adjacent to Bland told CNN she did not hear any commotion or screaming that would suggest foul play before Bland was found dead.
The woman said Bland wasn’t eating, and was emotional and often crying during her three days in the jail. She was also stressed about missing her first day of work at her new job, said Alexandria Pyle.
“She found out her bond was $5,000, and no one – she was calling and calling – and no one was answering, and then after that she just broke down. She was crying and crying,” Pyle said (Sanchez 4).
Rafael Zuniga and Michael Serges left the Waller County sheriff’s office in September 2015 for the Waller Police Department, a smaller agency with less responsibility, according to state records obtained by The Associated Press. They started work on the same day.
They have kept those jobs even after admitting under oath their roles in falsifying a jail monitoring log that indicated guards checked on Bland an hour before she was found hanging in her cell in July 2015, according to an attorney for the Bland family, which has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the county and several employees, including the two former jailers. Local authorities ruled Bland’s death a suicide.
Attorney Tom Rhodes told the AP this week that Zuniga acknowledged in a deposition that the log was filled out in advance with times that he supposedly conducted cell checks. Serges acknowledged that he signed the bottom of the log sheet at the beginning of the shift before any actual checks, according to Rhodes, who described the depositions but did not provide transcripts to the AP.
...
Jail records show Bland had said at booking she previously tried to commit suicide, which means she should have been checked at least every 30 minutes by jail standards. State guidelines say all inmates are to be checked hourly.
Instead, two hours elapsed before jailers noticed Bland was unconscious, which isn’t reflected in the jail log, Rhodes told the AP. The sheriff’s office has acknowledged the documented 8 a.m. in-person check was done by intercom.
The Texas Commission on Jail Standards cited the jail after Bland’s death for not observing inmates in person and failing to provide documentation that its staff had been trained on how to deal with potentially suicidal inmates.
“There’s a lot more going on here than there’s reflected in the documents,” Rhodes said. “Because the documents in many cases are just flat-out wrong.”
…
When asked whether they had checked Bland’s cell at 8:01 a.m., as noted in the jail log, both Zuniga and Serges said they had not, Rhodes said. Bland was pronounced dead at 9:06 a.m., authorities said (Fusaro 1-2).
… Encinia initially claimed that he pulled Bland out of her car so that he could more safely conduct the stop when she failed to use a turning signal. A grand jury found that to be false and indicted him on a perjury charge, the Texas Tribune reports. On Wednesday, the judge dismissed that charge after the cop's defense team cut a deal contingent on Encinia never working in law enforcement again.
"Brian and his family appreciate the thoughtful review by the prosecutors," Encinia's lawyer said in a statement. "Dismissal was the right thing to do. The Encinias will remain forever grateful to their family, friends, and members of the law enforcement community for all their support."
Ever since her death, Bland's family has vehemently opposed a medical examiner's assertion, citing the 28-year-old activist’s brand-new job as a compelling reason to live. In July 2016, a local cop levied the accusation that he was commanded to stay quiet about certain aspects of Bland's time in custody. Prairie View officer Michael Kelley said that Encinia had to cook up an "assaulting a public servant charge" against Bland with the help of a supervisor in order to justify her detainment. He also said that Bland came into jail with marks on her forehead—a detail that was omitted by the police report Encinia filled out.
Although no one was ultimately held responsible for Bland's death, her name remains a focal point in the national conversation about police brutality. Additionally, the Texas legislature passed the Sandra Bland Act on June 15, which requires independent investigations of deaths that take place in jails (Conti 1-2).
The circumstances of her arrest and death led the Texas Legislature to pass the “Sandra Bland Act,” which expands citizens' protections during police interactions. It also helps people with a history of mental health or substance abuse issues get treatment, and get easier access to bond if they end up in jail.
But Houston Democratic state Rep. Garnet Coleman, who cosponsored the bill, told Texas Standard host David Brown on Monday that it fell short of his original goals. He said key provisions were left out of the final law, including an end to "pretext" stops. That means an officer doesn't need to have probable cause to stop a driver, only a "reasonable suspicion" that the driver might have committed a crime.
"We all know what happened in New York with their policy of stop and frisk," Coleman said. "This is stop and frisk in a car."
Coleman and other advocates of the "Sandra Bland Act," including [state] Rep. Nicole Collier, a Democrat from Fort Worth who chairs the Criminal Jurisprudence Committee, said other important provisions were left out of the 2017 law. Limits would have been placed on arrests in fine-only cases, like the traffic stop that led to Bland's death, Collier [said] ...
"She was arrested for an alleged minor traffic violation," she said. "We want to be able to limit those types of interactions that could escalate unnecessarily."
Collier said addressing the kinds of police practices that led to Bland being stopped, and that contribute to incidents of violence against Black Americans, requires a rethinking of how officers are hired.
“Not everybody deserves to be a law enforcement officer," she said. "That is a position in high regard, with a lot of authority."
Collier advocated for greater supervision over police, and creating a standard definition of "excessive force" across police agencies.
Despite what's missing from the final version of the "Sandra Bland Act," Coleman said it does include important provisions like deescalation training for officers.
The Legislative Black Caucus has asked Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to make police reform a priority during the 2021 legislative session. But Abbott, so far, has declined to commit to such an effort (Diaz 2-3).
[You may access the two important videos by pasting these links on Google.]
7 plus-minute dashcam video segment of a 59 minute recording. https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/100000003813646/police-video-shows-sandra-blands-arrest.html
Bland’s 39 second cell phone video. (Scroll down the article’s page a little.) https://www.npr.org/2019/05/07/721086944/sandra-blands-phone-video-of-her-own-arrest-surfaces-reviving-calls-for-new-inqu
A Black Writer’s Commentary
I am sick and tired of us falling for the okie-doke. I am sick and tired of the abuse of black women being rationalized away because we talk back and don’t stay in our place.
Sandra Bland did not kill herself.
I keep repeating myself for good reason: because despite, however “woke” you may be, you probably have to be convinced that Bland’s death was undeserving, and, much more, not at her own hands.
Because this is the burden of blackness: to always be guilty until proven innocent. And even when not proven guilty, to always, always, always have people be suspicious of you.
On Tuesday, I was reminded anew that I could’ve been a murdered somebody, and, folks, including black folk who know and love me, would believe it was possible that I killed me.
And so I’m waiting, not on a reopened investigation—which is more than warranted. Nor am I waiting on justice in dollars or in jail sentences, because she already got a futile street sign. I’m waiting on [when] black folk realize how much we’ve internalized white supremacy.
I’m waiting because if I ever come up dead while in police custody, I want y’all to know that somebody killed me. Don’t let no one tell y’all nothing different, ever.
That is why I’m going to keep telling the world again and again and again: Sandra Bland did not kill herself (deGregory 1-2).
Works cited:
Collister, Brian. “Sandra Bland Recorded Her Own Arrest. Watch Her Cellphone Video from the 2015 Traffic Stop.” WFAA, Updated May 7, 2019. Net. https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/sandra-bland-recorded-her-own-arrest-new-cellphone-video-reveals/287-44ff2f5b-f481-48c3-a5ca-fad15296d979
Conti, Allie. “The Cop Who Arrested Sandra Bland Was Cleared of All Charges.” Vice, June 29, 2017. Net. https://www.vice.com/en/article/d38z4z/the-cop-who-arrested-sandra-bland-was-cleared-of-all-charges-vgtrn
deGregory, Crystal A. “deGregory: ‘Sandra Bland Did Not Kill Herself’.” The Atlanta Voice, May 9, 2019. Net. https://www.theatlantavoice.com/articles/degregory-sandra-bland-op-ed/
Diaz, Joy. “Lawmakers Push for More Police Reforms on Five-Year Anniversary of Sandra Bland's Death.” KUT90.5, July 13, 2020. Net. https://www.kut.org/texas/2020-07-13/lawmakers-push-for-more-police-reforms-on-five-year-anniversary-of-sandra-blands-death
Fusaro, Nick. “2 Jailers Moved into Policing Jobs after Sandra Bland’s Death.” News 10, Updated August 6, 2016. Net. https://www.news10.com/news/2-jailers-moved-into-policing-jobs-after-sandra-blands-death/1108193760/
Hassan, Adeel. “The Sandra Bland Video: What We Know.” The New York Times, May 7, 2019. Net. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/07/us/sandra-bland-brian-encinia.html
McDonald, Soraya Nadia. “HBO’s ‘Say Her Name’ Has Few Answers about What Happened to Sandra Bland.” The Undefeated, December 3, 2018. Net. https://theundefeated.com/features/hbo-say-her-name-has-few-answers-about-what-happened-to-sandra-bland/
Montgomery, David. “Sandra Bland, It Turns Out, Filmed Traffic Stop Confrontation Herself.” The New York Times, May 7, 2019. Net. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/07/us/sandra-bland-video-brian-encinia.html
Montgomery, David. “Sandra Bland Was Threatened with Taser, Police Video Shows.” The New York Times, July 21, 2015. Net. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/22/us/sandra-bland-was-combative-texas-arrest-report-says.html
Sanchez, Ray. “Who was Sandra Bland?” CNN, Updated July 23, 2015. Net. https://www.cnn.com/2015/07/22/us/sandra-bland
No comments:
Post a Comment