Sandra Bland.
My two cents.
I’ve not paid ANY attention to this story – until I saw this morning that the police have released the ‘traffic stop/arrest’ video.
Having just watched the entire ten minute video, I am disturbed by what I saw and heard. While she may have been disrespectful with her cigarette (which may have caused the initial confrontation), the police officer himself was to blame for a lot of it.
i.e., did he really need to ask her to get out of the car, because she talked back to him regarding her smoking?
Did he then really need to yank open her door, and try to forcefully yank her out of the car?
Did he really need to pull out his taser and shout at her?
There were several times when he could have taken a step back, and deescalated the situation – before it got worse – and, yes, even though we aren’t able to see what happened afterwards, we can hear him argue with her on the side of the road/sidewalk.
It was a silly traffic stop – for switching lanes without a signal – why not disregard her smoking, and just move on? Why not just give her the summons, tell her he’s done, and then proceed back to his car? Why did he think he needed to arrest her – for not obeying him regarding her cigarette?
I believe I heard he was ‘arresting her, for resisting arrest’. I’m not sure what that means – yes, she was resisting him, but what was he initially arresting her for? You can charge someone for ‘resisting arrest’, but that is an additional charge AFTER arresting them on something else. You cannot “arrest” them for just ‘resisting arrest’ – or do I have that wrong??
Again, this police office had many, many chances to stop the initial confrontation. Yes, she was mouthy and could have been more respectful – but, if I were in a similar situation, and a police office yanks open my car door and tried to pull me out, I think I would have gotten somewhat angry too – especially since the initial reason for pulling me over was because I failed to signal – by the way, I’ve gotten lots of speeding tickets in my life, but no cop (police officer) has EVER pulled me over for ‘not signaling’. Who does that, and why? You could see that that street wasn’t a high traffic street.
I truly support the police and what they do, and i truly think they have a really tough job these days. But in this case, I think this officer was a bit of a jerk (sorry), and it could have been handled a lot better. This was a young woman, not a guy ‘from the hood’, etc.
Then, AFTER the arrest, why was there a need to put her in jail? For three days? Over a traffic stop – AND, because he thought he assaulted her (by kicking him) when he pulled her out of her car?
While I don’t think she was murdered in jail – I think this whole thing (the arrest, and then jailing her) was blown out of proportion by the police – with the end result being her suicide. And, I am very sad to learn that a simple ‘failure to signal’ traffic stuff led to someone taking their own life. This was so wrong on so many levels, and could have been EASILY prevented.
Again – I want to say, I support the police, and I feel a lot of times, some people do not know how to behave or talk to police when police are talking with them. I think this was some of that, but, it’s up to the officer to then realize that he needs to calm the situation down, AND NOT escalate it further. Rather than do that, he asserted his authority by manhandling her (although there wasn’t video confirming this), cuffing her, etc. This time, there were no crowds, and he wasn’t ‘fearing’ for his safety – in my opinion.
I have an acquaintance who is a police officer but I rarely see him (Lailah’s uncle), but I wonder what his opinion/take would be, if he saw this video.
Sandra Bland, Please rest in peace – you did not deserve this.
What a waste of someone’s life.
