Original Post Date
2015-09-01 06:16 PM
Original Body
On Friday July 10,2015 Sandra Bland, a 28 year old female of African descent was arrested in Hempstead [Waller county] Texas during a routine traffic stop.
Before any words were exchanged and before the state trooper Brian Encinia who pulled her over even got out of his car it was obvious to her that his intent for the stop was to harass her.
Most of the dialogue between the two was caught on the dash cam of his vehicle although the actual assault when he broke her wrist and slammed her head into the ground missed the visual portion Sandra sensing trouble, was wise enough to give a verbal commentary of these events as they occurred.
He first gets behind Sandra after pulling over a apparently White motorist who he was very polite and friendly to and gave her a warning.
He got behind Sandra for no apparent t reason and was noticabley more aggresive when he did get out to speak to her. He asked her a bunch of unnecessary questions and whn he asked her to put her cigarette out she refused and he then decided to arrest her. He used unnecessary force from the very begining and even his own department says he failed to obey protocol.
He apparently directed her out of the range of camera view so he could assault her during the actual dialoge Sandra can be heard saying "I swear on my life y'all some pussies" apparently a self fulfilling prophecy. Sometime over the weekend she was found dead in her cell. According to the coroner she hung herself with a trashbag.
They alsogo onto claim that she either ate or smoked a great amount of marijuana either directly before her arrest or sometime while she was in the jail.
The most obvious questions of course are how did she get a large amount of marijuana in the county jail or consume it without anybody noticing and how did a woman with fractured wrist fasion a knot tight enough to hang herself out of a trash bag and of course why was she being held in jail with an untreated fracture ?
Immediately after the encounter Encinia could not only be heard lying on the phone to his supervisor but asking what he should charge her for.He even admits that he had not arrested but told her the reason he was being so rough toward her was because she was resisting arrest. Sandra's family has filed a federal law suit. The FBI and the Texas Rangers are currently investigating her death.
Photo credit: March to honor Sandra Bland, by Fibonacci Blue https://www.flickr.com/photos/fibonacciblue/20207475375