Discovering the Truth about the Death of Sandra Bland
Before getting to the doctored dash cam footage brought to light by Ben Norton, there are a couple of other issues that should be discussed. It is immensely important to discover the truth about what happened to Sandra Bland, and it is equally important to hold all who are involved in her death, at any level, responsible for the role that they have played. However, before we can even get to the point in which Sandra Bland lost her life, we must take an extremely close look at how she ended up in police custody in the first place.
Trooper’s Failure to Deescalate the Situation
Let’s be clear here. Law enforcement officers are trained to effectively deescalate potentially volatile situations, without the use of force, and we know that they are capable of doing this with great effectiveness. We know this because white people can be some of the most obnoxious people in the world when pulled over, and yet rarely are they arrested for their obnoxious behavior. Police officers are generally very tolerant of verbal resistance when dealing with whites. In this particular case, as with far too many other situations involving blacks, the officer’s tolerance is almost non-existent. He asks her about whether or not she is irritated. Of course she is, which is the response with a significant number of people when pulled over and ticketed. As blacks, we must be careful to guard against the conditioned response of blaming the victim for behavior that is commonly overlooked. It ignores the core intent and removes accountability for the perpetrator.
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Sandra Bland voicing her displeasure with being stopped is not grounds to escalate the situation, nor is it ground for arrest. If you stopped a person for failing to properly signal, give her a ticker or a warning and let her be on her way. Why is he antagonizing her? Why the command to put the cigarette out while she is still in the car, unless you have already made up in your mind that you are about to extract her from the vehicle. Why is the cigarette important? Normally officers only request that a person extinguish their cigarette after they have exited the, because at that moment, the cigarette could be used as a weapon. So, his requesting that she put the cigarette out is indicative of his intent to remove her, but he is stating that the reason she is being removed is because she failed to distinguish the cigarette. Do you get where this is going? Basically, he did not like her attitude, he was going to give her an attitude adjustment. He did not like the idea that she was standing up to him.
Trooper Breaks Protocol
The trooper then demands that she get out of the car, without giving a reason why. Unless she is being detained for something, she should not have to get out of the car, which is a quick way to escalate a the situation. When she mentions that she does not have to get out because she is not under arrest, he then says that she is under arrest, but once again, he fails to identify why at this time. Now keep in mind, this is prior to when the alleged assault took place, which is supposed to be the reason she was arrested. Are you starting to see the officers intent to arrest her even before he had a reason to?
When she refuses to exit the car, he threatens to tase her. She then complies and he orders her to the side of the road out of view of the dash cam, which is odd. It would seem that the fact that he was having difficulty with Sandra that he would want everything on film, but he purposely moves her out of the frame of the camera. What happens after that is still in question, but we already know that there was ill intent and a pre-existing desire to arrest her before the alleged assault took place.
Finally, as Ben Norton explains below, if there was no wrong doing, why has the footage that was released by DPS edited extensively? These are the questions that must be answered. There is obviously a cover up, but we are yet to know to what extent it exists, nor do we know to what extent others are involved.
One thing that is certain is that we must make our presence felt through immediate economic sanctions. The time is now for us to take a stand and be willing to ride it out. The line has been drawn. ~ Dr. Rick Wallace, Ph.D.
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Dashcam Video of Violent Arrest of Sandra Bland Was Edited
The dashcam video released to the public of the violent arrest of Sandra Bland was edited.
Bland was a 28-year-old Black Lives Matter civil rights activist and vocal critic of police brutality who died in police custody after a Texas officer pulled her over for a traffic violation, ordered her out of her car when she refused to put out her cigarette, and aggressively arrested her. Police say Bland committed suicide, yet the Waller County prosecutor says Bland’s case is “being treated just as it would be a murder investigation.”
The Texas Department of Public Safety uploaded dashcam police video of the arrest to YouTube on 21 July. Parts of the approximately 52 minutes of footage it uploaded have clearly been doctored.
A man leaves the truck in the center of the frame at 25:05. For the next 15 seconds, he walks toward the right of the frame and leaves. At 25:19, he suddenly appears again, promptly disappears, then returns at 25:22. The same footage of him walking is subsequently repeated.
The following video consists of 25:01-25:32 in the footage released by the Texas Department of Public Safety:
This is not the only part of the video that was edited.
At 32:37, a white car drives into the left side of the frame, then promptly disappears in the middle of the road. Seconds later, the same car drives back into the frame and subsequently turns left. This footage is later looped several times.
A different white car also drives into the left side of the frame and turns left from 32:49 to 32:59. The previous white car again briefly enters the frame at 33:04, and once more at 33:06, yet it suddenly disappears both times. When these cuts are made in the footage, the lights on top of the truck in the center of the frame also abruptly cut out.
At 33:08, the exact same footage from 32:37 is repeated, followed by the same second white car at 33:17.
The following video consists of 33:02-33:12 in the footage released by the Texas Department of Public Safety:
The same happens from 33:50-34:12, which can be seen in the following video:
Similar edits and loops are made throughout the video.
It appears that someone cut footage out and looped part of the video in order to correspond with the recorded audio of Texas state trooper Brian Encinia speaking. Who exactly edited the footage is unknown, but the video was recorded by police and released by the Texas Department of Public Safety.
UPDATE, 21 July:
Award-winning filmmaker Ava DuVernay also agrees that the video has been edited.
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