Failure To Signal A Lane-change Must Never End In Death Under Any Circumstance.…

“I under­stand there’s dis­be­lief among some friends and fam­i­ly that she would do this to her­self. That’s why it’s very impor­tant that the Texas Rangers be allowed to con­duct a thor­ough investigation.”

That was the state­ment from Waller County District Attorney Elton Mathis regard­ing the alleged sui­cide of Chicago native 28-year-old Sandra Bland. 
Bland was arrest­ed Friday in Waller County, north­west of Houston, by Texas state troop­er Brian Encinia and lat­er charged with “assault of a pub­lic ser­vant,” accord­ing to Waller County Sheriff Glenn Smith. The police account of what hap­pens is the usu­al cop speak which is that she was “argu­men­ta­tive and combative”.
I will be def­er­en­tial to peo­ple liv­ing in Texas or hav­ing knowl­edge whether being argu­men­ta­tive is a crime. Police said Miss Bland a African-American College grad­u­ate had been pulled over for fail­ing to sig­nal before a lane change. From the Video evi­dence pre­sent­ed from Texas Authorities , Miss Bland in her own words told Encinia she was hur­ry­ing to get out of his way. They made no alle­ga­tion that she refused to pro­duce Identification which would neces­si­tate the Trooper demand­ing she exit her car.
What they did say is that the offi­cer wrote a tick­et and returned to miss Bland’s car gave her the tick­et and asked whether she was okay , upon which she said “you were fol­low­ing me and I got out of your way, and what you did is write me a tick­et for nothing”. 

Brian Encinia then demand­ed that miss Bland put out the cig­a­rette she was smok­ing . Upon which she cor­rect­ly told him she did not have to put out her cig­a­rette in her own car. This obvi­ous­ly enraged the cop, upon which she was forced from her car thrown to the ground with anoth­er cop arriv­ing on scene and pil­ing on.. The end result was they end­ed up on top of miss Bland with their knees on her and her com­plain­ing that she can­not feel her hand and that she is unable to hear any­thing after they slammed her head onto the ground.
This appear to be anoth­er inci­dent of the dis­re­spect which is preva­lent in too many of America’s cops who clear­ly have a God com­plex. What they do is to esca­late the most minor and incon­se­quen­tial infrac­tion into an arrestable offense then they jus­ti­fy phys­i­cal­ly abus­ing their vic­tims by claim­ing assault on law enforce­ment. Under no cir­cum­stances should a lane change vio­la­tion end up in an arrest much less what appears to be pil­ing on of charges in order to jus­ti­fy arrest­ing and keep­ing her in Jail in order to show her who is boss. Clearly this seem to be what occurred here.

The troop­er who pulled over Sandra Bland on a traf­fic stop last Friday has been put on desk duty for vio­lat­ing pro­ce­dures. The DPS said the uniden­ti­fied troop­er “vio­lat­ed the depart­men­t’s pro­ce­dures regard­ing traf­fic stops and the depart­men­t’s cour­tesy policy.”

This con­firms that Brian Encinia was clear­ly on an ego trip which esca­lat­ed a sim­ple traf­fic stop into some­thing total­ly unnec­es­sary cul­mi­nat­ing in the death of Miss Bland. There are now alle­ga­tions that the video released by the Texas DPS was edit­ed to cov­er up the cops behavior.
I watched the video sev­er­al times, I am not qual­i­fied to say whether or not the video was altered, how­ev­er what I did see was a cop total­ly out of con­trol. He was dis­re­spect­ful, rude and abra­sive. Everything which occurred is attrib­ut­able to his ego-mani­a­cal aggres­sion toward Miss Bland.
In one sec­tion of the video Miss Bland could be heard ask­ing the cop whether he felt like a real man hav­ing slammed her head into the ground he respond­ed “Good, good” in dis­dain then threat­ened her with more violence.

Let us be clear on this case of police violence. 
♦ There was no need for him to pull her over, she said you were fol­low­ing and I got out of your way.
♦ She was ready to take the tick­et and be on her way.
♦ He made no attempt to give her a ticket,or warning.
♦ She had every right to smoke in her car with­out being told to put out her cigarette.
♦ He had absolute­ly no right to arrest her.
♦ He had no right to put his hands on her.
♦ He had no right to threat­en her with force.
♦ There was no evi­dence that she assault­ed him he assault­ed her in plain sight.

The Family of Sandra Bland should be mind­ful that noth­ing mat­ters beyond this point and they should not allow the Texas DPS , the FBI or the Media to con­vince them that her state­ments of depres­sion or any oth­er issue they throw up , jus­ti­fies the death of their loved one.
They should not allow the con­ver­sa­tion to be moved beyond the ille­gal­i­ty of the stop and arrest.
That and only that is impor­tant. Even if some­how irrefutable evi­dence sur­faces that she did kill her­self the police caused her death and that’s what’s at the heart of this matter.
Murder is a felony . It is com­mit­ted when a per­son kills anoth­er with mal­ice afore­thought. I believe it can clear­ly be con­strued that the cop who ele­vat­ed and insti­gat­ed this inci­dent did not care whether Sandra Bland lived or died.
Sandra Bland moved from Chicago to Texas to start a new job. It is incon­ceiv­able and it defies log­ic that she would then take her own life after arriv­ing to start a new job. 

Yesterday my wife embarked on a road-trip with my son which saw her dri­ving through sev­er­al States. I though about it long and hard, was it a sound deci­sion for her to dri­ve when she could have eas­i­ly hopped on a flight?
My con­cern cen­tered sole­ly on the dan­gers African-American peo­ple face at the hands of Police. 
It is a tragedy of cri­sis pro­por­tion when one’s con­cern for the safe­ty of their loved ones and them­selves are not from reg­u­lar crim­i­nals but the state spon­sored crim­i­nals in uni­form who con­tin­ue to abuse and kill at will with­out consequence.