sandra bland

Grand jury will not indict Texas police officials in Sandra Bland’s death

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stare-me-down:

A grand jury declined to indict anyone in the death Sandra Bland, who was found unresponsive in a Texas jail cell last summer, the prosecutor said.

The grand jury will reconvene in January, however, to consider if there should be charges in her arrest, which was caught on video and sparked an uproar, according to the prosecutor.

Bland was pulled over on July 10 for changing lanes improperly.

But a confrontation erupted between her and the officer – some of which was caught on dash cam footage.

The officer who pulled Bland over could be heard on the video threatening to “light…up” Bland, apparently with a stun gun. Authorities at the time said she was “argumentative” and “uncooperative.”

The confrontation continues off camera where Bland said she can’t feel her arm and the officer says she kicked him, according to audio from the tape.

The officer was later put on administrative duty for rules violations. His current status was not clear.

After being taken into custody she was found hanged in a jail cell three days later.

See here’s the problem, I would say OK maybe she killed herself. BUT she didn’t have any major problems when she left home, got pulled over in Texas for virtually no reason and all of a sudden she “committed suicide ”? I just don’t trust Texas enough to think this is possible. We all know about Texas, this fascist racist state.

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nezua:

krxs10:

opedope:

krxs10:

Sandra Bland’s toxicology report was just released today, and of course just with the rest of this case, nothing adds up.

Waller County District Attorney Elton Mathis made the disclosure in a text message to attorney Cannon Lambert, who has called the state’s autopsy on the Chicago-area woman defective, Lambert said.

“Looking at the autopsy results and toxicology, it appears she swallowed a large quantity of marijuana or smoked it in the jail,” Mathis said in a text message to Lambert that the attorney provided to Reuters.

The lab reports confirm high amounts of THC found in her blood streams that, according to many experienced toxicologists, would mean she’d have ingested it while in jail, and as recently has 5 hours before her death.

Questions being raised:

  • If she had it on her, then why did The Waller County Police Department confirm that they checked her when she arrived and didn’t report finding any type of drug?
  • How would she have been able to change into her standard jail jumpsuit and still keep the weed on her?
  • If she smoked it, how could she have done it without anyone smelling or catching her?
  • If she was depressed, as they claim she was, wouldn’t the marijuana have helped to prevent her from committing suicide in the first place? as it is used to help treat people with suicidal tendencies. 

It just isn’t making sense….

#StayWoke

Do any of you know how much a half an ounce of marijuana actually is? One person wouldn’t be able to eat that much in one day on her own, let alone smoke it before/while she was detained. Believe me, if she had ingested that much THC willingly she wouldn’t have been able to talk back to the officer, let alone drive. It’s like they’re not even trying to make sense anymore tbh

For those who don’t understand how much that is let me put it to you this way:

Most people buy a single brownie to get massively baked, and usually they’ll eat it in increments because everyone knows that it takes half an hour to kick in and they’re usually very strong. 

The standard for an entire batch of brownies is an Ounce of weed. Saying she consumed half an Ounce of Marijuana is basically saying that she would have had to consume half an entire BATCH of brownies. 

Still not getting it? How about this. 

An ounce (28.35 grams) typically makes about 60 marijuana cigarettes, or “joints.” But this will, of course, vary depending on the potency of the joint: an ounce could produce as many as 100 joints or as few as 30.

It’s not only extremely unlikely, it’s also impossible seeing as she would have either been extremely sick or unable to smoke 60 fucking blunts in her jail cell, alone, without anyone noticing or any sort of repercussions. It’s fucking ludicrous.

It’s nonsense. But before we go to the lie about weed, let’s look at this person’s baseline behavioral and emotional setup. You are starting a new job, and feeling great. You are arrested on the way, but not sad! No, you’re very indignant about being jailed for a turn signal, tell your friend on the phone how baffled you are that it’s come to all this over a traffic violation, and you also very vocally let everyone know you ‘can’t wait for this to get to court.’

This is the frame of mind you suddenly smoke a half ounce of weed all at once and then hang yourself? Fucking kidding me?? The worst movies wouldn’t let that through in a script. No one would buy it.

She definitely didn’t bring it into the jail. If she’d had that much weed on her in the car, she would’ve been very polite to the cop. And put out the cigarette but before that, shown NO odd behavior. why? BECAUSE YOU ARE CARRYING WEED not just on you but IN YOUR CAR and not just that, but ACROSS STATE LINES AND YOU KNOW THAT’S DANGEROUS. You would NOT give them lip. Period.

Also, have you been arrested? They strip you naked, check out your hair, even have you bend over and wiggle your toes as well as open your ass crack for crying out loud. You can’t bring a half ounce of weed in!! So no. She brought no weed in. But we know that. And if she did not, how’d she get it? Because as we know, jails are stocked with people looking to give away big bags of weed for nothing. Surrrrrre. They’re friendly, open, trusting people who feel good just giving strangers their drugs–which are serious coin in lockup.

So no. She didn’t procure a half oz of weed isolated in a room by herself from people she didn’t know, using no money. Nope.

It’s all lies. And if they are willing to lie that deep, I think it’s clear they have a whole lot to cover up. And the DOJ needs to get in there stat. Jails can’t be allowed to serve as extrajudicial hangman and it’s happening too much lately.

PS: Additionally, it would be impossible to smoke a half ounce in the jail in a few days without having massive clouds of smoke stinking up the place. Massive. But as far as eating it? I’ll interject here just to say that cooked edibles extract the THC from Marijuana by using as a wet ingredient, i.e., simmering it in the oil so the oils can be mixed in, and thus are far more potent. If you just ate weed without doing that, it would have very little effect, relatively. A ½ pan of brownies would NOT equal eating ½ oz uncooked buds. Not even close.

But what idiot would eat ½ ounce of buds? Ew. And imagine you did, just to argue the point. Well, if anything, you’re just gonna end up grossed out and annoyed because you’ve wasted your weed and are barely high. You’re maybe mildly buzzed, and definitely not so blasted that you’re going to enter some mythical tripped out land where the answer to aggressive cops who stymie the rights you know you have is to hang yourself the day before you’re bailed out.

Nope.

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The possibilities are these: [Sandra] Bland died from an untreated head injury after State Trooper Brian Encinia bashed her head against the pavement and police staged her suicide; Bland died from an epileptic seizure (recall that Encinia’s response to Bland telling him she had epilepsy was “Good”) and police staged her suicide; Bland was killed or died in some other way in police custody and her sucide was staged; or Bland indeed took her own life, after she informed police of previous suicide attempts and they utterly failed to prevent another while she was in their care.

There is no version of events where police are not culpable for Sandra Bland’s death.

And all because Officer Encinia was angry that Sandra Bland knew her rights and was exercising them. No matter how she died, she is dead because that man became enraged that a black woman wouldn’t unquestioningly submit to him.

http://www.shakesville.com/2015/07/sandra-bland-case-updates.html

Melissa McEwan sums up how the police are responsible for Sandra Bland’s death no matter how she died. They need to be held accountable.

(via xxunmasked)

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When Bland refuses to comply with Encinia’s arbitrary order to put out her cigarette, the cop explodes into a full-blown bully, tells her he’s going to pull her out of her car, tries and fails to pull her out with his hands, then brandishes his taser. At taser-point, he forces her out of the camera’s field of vision. Then, off-screen, from the sound of it, he evidently manhandles her in a way that recalls the recent pool party incident, when officer Eric Casebolt slammed the body of 15-year-old Dajerria Becton for, again, no good reason.

In the way the video of Eric Garner revealed an important piece of information missing from the police report, namely that he was choked to death, the video of Sandra Bland’s arrest reveals a cloud of crucial information missing from the police report Encinia filed later. What he doesn’t reveal in his later police report is that Bland was forced out of her car for no other reason than that she declined to immediately surrender all of her rights to his whims. He asks her, “Do you mind putting out your cigarette, please?” but that’s not what he’s really asking.

Consider the context of that request. It’s one in a series of escalating provocations. From the transcript:

TROOPER: “You seem very irritated.”

BLAND: “I am. I really am. Because of what I’ve been stopped and am getting a ticket for. I’ve been getting out of the way. You’ve been speeding up, so I move over and you stop me. So yeah, I am a little irritated. But that didn’t stop you from giving me a ticket.”

TROOPER: “Are you done?”

BLAND: “You asked me what was wrong and I told you. So now I’m done, yeah.”

TROOPER: “OK, OK.”

(Pause)

TROOPER: “Do you mind putting out your cigarette, please?”

BLAND: “I’m in my car. Why do I have to put out my cigarette?”

TROOPER: “Well, you can step out now.”

BLAND: “I don’t have to step on out.”

TROOPER: “Step out of the car.”

In a huff, he places his clipboard on the roof of her car, and opens her door.

BLAND: “No, you don’t have the right.”

TROOPER: “Step out of the car!”

BLAND: “You don’t have the right to do that.”

TROOPER: “I do have the right. Now step out or I’ll remove you.”

BLAND: “I am getting removed for failure to signal?”

TROOPER: “Step out or I’ll remove you. I’m giving you a lawful order. Get out of the car now or I’m going to remove you.”

BLAND: “I’m calling my lawyer.”

TROOPER: “I’m going to yank you out of here.”

BLAND: “OK, you’re going to yank me out of the car?”

TROOPER: “Get out!” (reaching into the car)

BLAND: “Don’t touch me!”

TROOPER: “Get out of the car!”

BLAND: “Don’t touch me. I am not under arrest. You don’t have the right to touch me.”

TROOPER: “You are under arrest.”

BLAND: “I’m under arrest for what?”

This is where the interaction achieves full nonsense, because he created the conditions for this arrest. You can tell she can’t believe she’s being arrested. And you can sympathize with her: It’s not like she’s under arrest because she broke the law.

Just think about it. If a cop car is accelerating behind you, you’re not going to put on your turn signal, you’re going to get out of its way. But Encinia seems to live in another worlds from the rest of us. He opts for an eccentric, almost purely imaginary, interpretation of her actions, in my view. The only world where Bland’s arrest makes sense may be within the fantastic landscape of the officer’s mind.

He doesn’t even answer her essential question. His response to her question “I’m under arrest for what?” is to act as if she hasn’t said anything—while radioing for backup.

Their interaction continues:

TROOPER: “Get out of the car! Get out of the car now!”

BLAND: “Am I being apprehended? Did you try to give me a ticket?”

TROOPER: “Get out of the car!”

BLAND: “Why am I being apprehended? You done opened my car door. So you’re going to drag me out of my own car?”

TROOPER: “Get out of the car! I will light you up! Get out!”

BLAND: (Getting out of her car) “Wow. Wow. You’re doing all this for a failure to signal?”

TROOPER: “Get over there!”

At weapon-point, he directs her out of the camera’s field of vision.

Sandra Bland Is Dead Because She Believed in Her Rights as an American, Charles Mudede
(via gatheringbones)

Transcript of Sandra Bland arrest video [8:40-15:25]

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christel-thoughts:

iwriteaboutfeminism:

FULL VIDEO

Cop:
Ok, Ma’am. You ok?

SB:
I’m waitin’ on you. This is your job. I’m waitin’ on you…

Cop:
You seem very irritated.

SB:
I am. I really am because I feel like what I’m getting a ticket for, I was
getting out of your way. You were speeding up, tailing me, so I move over, and
you stop me. So, yeah, I am a little irritated, but that doesn’t stop you from
giving me a ticket.

Cop:
Are you done?

SB:
You asked me what was wrong and I told you. So now I’m done, yeah.

Cop:
Ok. You mind putting out your cigarette, please?

SB:
I’m in my car. Why do I have to put out my cigarette?

Cop:
Well you can step on out now.

SB:
I don’t have to step out of my car.

Cop:
Step out of the car. [Cop opens the car door] Step out.

SB:
No, you don’t have the right-

Cop:
Step out of the car!

SB:
You do not have the right to do that.

Cop:
I do have the right. Now, step out or I will remove you.

SB:
I refuse to talk to you other than to identify myself-

Cop:
Step out or I will remove you.

SB:
I am getting removed for a failure to-

Cop:
Step out or I will remove you. I’m giving you a lawful order. Get out of the
car now or I’m gonna remove you.

SB:
I’m calling my-

Cop:[Cop
reaches into the car] I’m gonna yank you out of here.

SB:
Okay, you gonna yank me out of my car?

Cop:
Get out.

SB:
Ok. Alright. Let’s do this. Don’t touch me.

Cop:
Get out of the car!

SB:
Don’t touch me! I’m not under arrest. You don’t have the right to-

Cop:
You ARE under arrest.

SB:
I’m under arrest for what? For what? For what?

Cop:
Get out of the car. Get out of the car! Now!

SB:
Why am I being apprehended? Because you’re trying to give me a ticket for a
failure-

Cop:
I said get out of the car.

SB:
Why am I being apprehended? You opened
my car door-

Cop:
I am gonna drag you outta here.

SB:
So you’re threatening to drag me out of my own car?

Cop:
Get out of the car!!

SB:
And then you-

Cop:
[Cop points his taser at her.] I will light you up!!

SB:
Wow.

Cop:
NOW!!

SB:
Wow. [Sandra steps out of the car.]

Cop:
Get out of the car!

SB:
For a failure to signal, you’re doing all this. You’re doing all this for a
failure to signal.

Cop:
Get over there. [Cop points her over to the sidewalk, while pointing his taser
at her.]

SB:
Right. Yeah. Let’s take this to court. [Sandra continues to walk toward the
sidewalk.] Let’s do this for a failure to signal. Yep, for a failure to signal.
[Sandra is led out of the view of the dashcam video.]

Cop:
Get off the phone.

SB:
I’m not on the phone. I have a right to record-

Cop:
Put your phone down.

SB:
This is my property.

Cop:
Put your phone down.

SB:
Sir?

Cop:
Put your phone down. Right now! Put your phone down.

SB:
[Sandra puts her phone down on the trunk of her car.] For a fucking failure to
signal, my goodness.

Cop:
Come over here!

SB:
Y’all are interesting. You feelin’ good about this whole thing?

Cop:
Stand right here.

SB:
You feelin’ good about yourself? For my failure to signal, you feel real good
about yourself, don’t you?

Cop:
Turn around.

SB:
You feel good about yourself, don’t you?

Cop:
Turn around. Turn around now. Put your hands-

SB:
Why am I being arrested?

Cop:
I’m giving you a lawful order. I will tell you-

SB:
Why am I being arrested? Why can’t you tell me that part?

Cop:
I’m giving you a lawful order. Turn around.

SB:
Why will you not tell me what’s going on?

Cop:
You are not compliant.

SB:
I’m not compliant ‘cause you just pulled me outta my car.

Cop:
Turn around!!

SB:
Are you fucking kidding me? This is some bullshit.

Cop:
Put your hands behind your back.

SB:
Cause you know this is straight bullshit, and you full a shit. Full a straight
shit. That’s why y’all are some scary fucking cops. South Carolina got all y’all
bitch asses scared. That’s all it is. Fucking scared of a female.

Cop:
If you would have just listened-

SB:
I was tryin’ sign the fucking ticket. Whatever.

Cop:
Stop movin’!

SB:
Are you fucking serious?

Cop:
Stop movin’.

SB:
Oh, I can’t wait till we go to court.  OH,
I can’t wait! I cannot WAIT ‘till we go to court! I can’t wait. OH, I can’t
wait. You want me to sit down now?

Cop:
No.

SB:
Oh, you gonna throw me to the floor? That’ll make you feel better about
yourself?

Cop:
Knock it off.

SB:
Ah, that’ll make you feel better about yourself? That make you feel real good,
won’t it? Fucking ass. Fucking pussy. For a failure to signal, you doin’ all of
this. In little ass Prairie View, Texas. My god. They must-

Cop:
You were getting a warning, and now you’re going to jail.

SB:
For what??

Cop:
You can come read right- [Cop leads Sandra back over to the trunk of the car.]

SB:
I’m getting a warning for what?

Cop:
Stay right here.

SB:
You just pointed me over there!

Cop:
I said stay right here.

SB:
Get your fucking mind right. OH, I swear on my life, y’all some pussies. A
pussy ass cop pulls for a fucking signal, you’re takin’ me to jail. What a
pussy. What a pussy. What a- you about to break my fucking wrist.

Cop:
Stop movin’!

SB:
I’m standin’ still! You keep movin’ me, goddamn it!

Cop:
Stay right there.

SB:
Don’t touch me. Fucking pussy, for a traffic ticket.

Cop:
[Goes around the car and closes the front door. Walks back off screen to where
Sandra is on the sidewalk.] Come read right over here. [He stands by the trunk
of the car and shows her the written warning.] This right here says a warning.
YOU started creating a problem. [Cop walks out of shot, toward Sandra.]

SB:
You asked me what was wrong!

Cop:
Do you have anything in your purse that’s illegal?

SB:
Do I look like I have anything on me? This a fuckin’ maxi dress!

Cop:
I’m removing  your glasses.

SB:
This a maxi dress.

Cop:
Come on over here.

SB:
Fucking assholes. For a- you about to break my wrist! Can you STOP!? You are
mother fuckin’ about to break my wrist! [Sandra makes sounds of pain.] STOOOPP!

Cop:
[Sounds of struggle.] Stop! Now! Stop it!

Cop
2: Stop resisting, ma’am.

Cop:
If you would stop then I would tell you!

SB:
[In pain.] For a fucking traffic  ticket.

Cop:
Now stop!

SB:
[In pain.] You are such a pussy. You are such a pussy.

Cop
2: No, you are.

Cop:
You were yankin’ around.

SB:
[In pain.] For a traffic signal.

Cop:
You were yankin’ around. When you pull away from me, you’re resisting arrest.

SB:
This make you feel real good. This make you feel real good, don’t it? A female
for a  traffic signal. For a traffic
signal. I know that makes you feel good, officer.

Cop
2: I got her. I got her.

SB:
I know it make you feel real good. You a real man now. You slam me, knock my
head into the ground, I got epilepsy, you mother fucker.

Cop:
Good. Good.

SB:
I hope I-

Cop
2: You should have thought of that before you start resisting!

SB:
Yeah, this is real good. Real good for a female. Yeah. Y’all strong, ooh. Y’all
real strong.

Cop:
I want you to wait right here. Wait right here.

SB:
I can’t go nowhere with your fucking knee on my back. Duh.

Cop:
[To Cop 2] I’m gonna open your door. [To man recording the brutality.] You need
to leave. You need to leave. You need to leave.

SB:
[inaudible] For a fucking traffic ticket.

Cop:
For a warning. For a warning. You’re going to jail for resisting arrest. Stand
up.

SB:
If I could!

Cop:
Roll over.

SB:
I can’t even fuckin’ feel my arm!

Cop:
Tuck your knee in.

SB:
I can’t-

Cop:
Listen, listen, you’re gonna sit up on your butt.

SB:
You just slammed my head into the ground. Do you not even care about that?

Cop
2: He’s telling you to getup.

SB:
I can’t even hear!

Cop
2: Yes you can.

Cop:
Sit on your butt.

SB:
You slammed my head into the ground.

Cop:
Sit up on your butt.

SB:
He threw my fucking head to the ground. What the hell?

Cop:
Now stand up.

SB:
All this for a traffic signal. I swear to god. All of this for a traffic
signal. [To witness.] Thank you for recording! Thank you! For a traffic signal.
Slammed me into the ground and everything.
Everything. I hope y’all feel good.

Remember when we kept telling y’all, white tumblr, that “know your rights” and all those videos of y’all talking to cops however you please was only for y’all? That it was white privilege? Yeah.