And it happens again. Sandra Bland (a black woman - shouldn't be relevant, but because of politics we know it is) is approached by the police for something minor - failure to signal on a lane change for which the officer intended to give the person a warning, not a citation and certainly not an arrest. The officer is initially calm and respectful, but the person is openly hostile, rude, and belligerent. Officer asks her to put out her cigarette. She refuses and says she can smoke in her own car. He orders her out of the car. She refuses his order, and all hell breaks lose (threats of Taser-use, physical altercation, foul language, etc.). She's subdued, but a few days later, she's dead in a jail cell. No one knows for sure how she died, but it looks like a suicide. Here's a good discussion about the traffic stop.
I tend to take the cop's side in this one. In hindsight, he may have been able to diffuse the situation as the Dallas Morning News Editorial Board suggests, but we don't live in hindsight. This isn't like the McKinney PD situation where the cop was acting like a crazy ninja the minute he showed up and started screaming and swearing at everybody. This cop was courteous to Bland basically until it was clear that she wasn't going to cooperate with him. He had the right to order her from the vehicle, and he may have had the right to instruct her to put out her cigarette. He shouldn't have threatened to Tase her, but that one error didn't make him the bad apple in this case. Things had already gone to hell.
As for her death, I'm guessing the coroner is going to rule it a suicide, but we'll never know for sure because there aren't any witnesses. I'm predicting that conspiracy theories are going to arise especially in the civil rights community, and Bland is going to be considered a martyr in their cause.
I notice that there is a very common theme in almost all of these police cases. The person being approached by the cop smack-talks, and that's when things start going to hell. The sister of Sandra Bland thinks the cop was picking on Bland and that his ego was bruised, and some are rushing to the "ego angle" on this case. Though they'll never acknowledge this, I'm starting to think that what the civil rights movement essentially wants is for suspects to be able to say whatever they want and be as insubordinate as they want with a cop and have there be no negative consequences for such conduct. Maybe I'm wrong about that, but that seems to be the goal, and frankly I've never heard any of their activists pressed to offer real specifics of what changes they'd like to see in the law, which leaves me to do nothing but speculate based on their reaction to specific incidents.
Cops are professionals. They are supposed to stay calm and make reasonable efforts to diffuse tense situations. Obviously, if you get physical or threaten to get physical with a cop, it's going to end badly for you (death or if you're lucky, serious bodily injury), and most sensible people (myself included) think that's understandable at least as a general rule. However, they are generally supposed to bring peace to dangerous situations if possible. However, what should happen if the person isn't physical but is basically acting like an uncooperative ******* in the face of your courtesy as Bland was? Should the cop have to sit and take your BS no matter how extreme it gets? Should there be a line at which it becomes OK for him to arrest or otherwise get physical with you for no reason other than your mouth? Serious question.
I tend to take the cop's side in this one. In hindsight, he may have been able to diffuse the situation as the Dallas Morning News Editorial Board suggests, but we don't live in hindsight. This isn't like the McKinney PD situation where the cop was acting like a crazy ninja the minute he showed up and started screaming and swearing at everybody. This cop was courteous to Bland basically until it was clear that she wasn't going to cooperate with him. He had the right to order her from the vehicle, and he may have had the right to instruct her to put out her cigarette. He shouldn't have threatened to Tase her, but that one error didn't make him the bad apple in this case. Things had already gone to hell.
As for her death, I'm guessing the coroner is going to rule it a suicide, but we'll never know for sure because there aren't any witnesses. I'm predicting that conspiracy theories are going to arise especially in the civil rights community, and Bland is going to be considered a martyr in their cause.
I notice that there is a very common theme in almost all of these police cases. The person being approached by the cop smack-talks, and that's when things start going to hell. The sister of Sandra Bland thinks the cop was picking on Bland and that his ego was bruised, and some are rushing to the "ego angle" on this case. Though they'll never acknowledge this, I'm starting to think that what the civil rights movement essentially wants is for suspects to be able to say whatever they want and be as insubordinate as they want with a cop and have there be no negative consequences for such conduct. Maybe I'm wrong about that, but that seems to be the goal, and frankly I've never heard any of their activists pressed to offer real specifics of what changes they'd like to see in the law, which leaves me to do nothing but speculate based on their reaction to specific incidents.
Cops are professionals. They are supposed to stay calm and make reasonable efforts to diffuse tense situations. Obviously, if you get physical or threaten to get physical with a cop, it's going to end badly for you (death or if you're lucky, serious bodily injury), and most sensible people (myself included) think that's understandable at least as a general rule. However, they are generally supposed to bring peace to dangerous situations if possible. However, what should happen if the person isn't physical but is basically acting like an uncooperative ******* in the face of your courtesy as Bland was? Should the cop have to sit and take your BS no matter how extreme it gets? Should there be a line at which it becomes OK for him to arrest or otherwise get physical with you for no reason other than your mouth? Serious question.
