If one or even both of the alleged 'suicides' indicate some 'nefarious' circumstance, will that mean that police/corrections everywhere would bear the brunt of a particular incident. More stereotyping; more suggesting of some murderous plot, or organizational scheme by all law enforcement everywhere to limit freedom or curtail human rights; more 'hands up' don't shoot' fictional events? With national police/public contacts numbering in the millions daily it shouldn't be very difficult to find just about any scenerio to make any point especially in the 'all the news thats fit to sell' environment of today. However most people are not fooled by inadvertent, unforeseen circumstances (Freddie grey, Eric Garner) depicted by some as 'nefarious' when they are likely to be found as anything but... and credibility suffers making reform unfocused and more difficult.
11
Most comments demonstrate how quickly people who profess to oppose racial profiling are to profile white police officers as racist. They don't know the state trooper who arrested Sandra Bland, but since he is white he must be racist.
27
I am white, on the far side of middle age and drive an expensive, foreign car.
I was pulled over for failing to signal. The young cop lectured me and was snarky. I thought the incident idiotic but said nothing, took my ticket and paid it.
Because that's what you're supposed to do, not abuse or assault the policeman.
I was pulled over for failing to signal. The young cop lectured me and was snarky. I thought the incident idiotic but said nothing, took my ticket and paid it.
Because that's what you're supposed to do, not abuse or assault the policeman.
35
Here we are...another black person dead for circumstances which no one can explain while in police custody. The arrests start out with police stopping someone for some incredible, almost laughable offence, and escalates to a felony.
Why did no one in that jail stop this madness? When this officer said he stopped Sandra Bland for changing lanes without a signal - was there not an adult in the room? It must have been hard to justify this insanity! Unless, of course, they routinely play with people's lives in the Waller County, Texas jail and are turned on by acting out sadistic measures.
I am still heartbroken that this was allowed to happen.
Why did no one in that jail stop this madness? When this officer said he stopped Sandra Bland for changing lanes without a signal - was there not an adult in the room? It must have been hard to justify this insanity! Unless, of course, they routinely play with people's lives in the Waller County, Texas jail and are turned on by acting out sadistic measures.
I am still heartbroken that this was allowed to happen.
18
Underlying the problem of police brutality against blacks (predominantly) and all others is the American system thought by many to be beneficial: the so-called rule of law. By it, control freaks (viz., legislators) write laws beyond number to control the behavior of their citizen-subjects, and authorize law-enforcement personnel to use whatever force and violence they deem is necessary and appropriate to enforce the law. The burden of this unholy authority is too much even for people of high moral virtue to handle without being corrupted, and as a class the enforcers are not particularly noted for their morality. The rule of law has outlived its usefulness.
5
I wonder how many of the people who have expressed doubt, or in some way tried to dilute or diminish what Mr Blow is saying, have enough first-hand knowledge of what it's like to be African-American and brought into custody. The films of Eric Garner getting killed before our very eyes should at least give all people some pause. Folks, they're not making this stuff up!
35
Suicides or something sinister? Are you kidding? Sandra at least is obviously something sinister from start to finish (literally). I don't think there's any doubt. Plus, doesn't the history of police in this country mean anything?
11
Democracy is a closed-loop system.
Obviously, the police force has authority over us.
However, our elected officials have the authority over the police.
We the voters have the authority over the politicians and elected leaders.
If any link within a closed loop is bad it means the entire loop is bad.
Those who claim that our police force is bad actually claim that all of us are bad.
It’s self-incriminating to claim that we have bad police force….
Obviously, the police force has authority over us.
However, our elected officials have the authority over the police.
We the voters have the authority over the politicians and elected leaders.
If any link within a closed loop is bad it means the entire loop is bad.
Those who claim that our police force is bad actually claim that all of us are bad.
It’s self-incriminating to claim that we have bad police force….
3
Both of these stories seem unbelievable on their face. These stories have no details (how was deceased found, was there a note) and the suicides no motives. These seem like the sort of stories that beurocrats might make up to protect themsleves-short on details so harder to trip up. Ate there more details?
7
Maybe it's time that African-American parents give their daughters the same speech they give their sons.
It shouldn't "hafta' be", but maybe it would save lives.
Maybe it would be a counter-balance to the emerging "autonomy" that we are encouraging in all of our adolescents.
At the same time let's encourage Mr. Blow to follow this "case" to it's conclusion, including the FBI investigation & write another column to tell us what "happened".
It shouldn't "hafta' be", but maybe it would save lives.
Maybe it would be a counter-balance to the emerging "autonomy" that we are encouraging in all of our adolescents.
At the same time let's encourage Mr. Blow to follow this "case" to it's conclusion, including the FBI investigation & write another column to tell us what "happened".
8
What a beautifully written article. I think you've inherited the mantle of Ida B. Wells Mr. Blow.
I am concerned as well about the deaths of the two African-American women. I know that in the Bland case it's complicated by the fact that she had some mental health issues which she discussed in FB videos if I recall correctly. I hope that there is a full and fair investigation of both the cases.
Hats off to you as well for pointing out eloquently and cogently that African-American women are as sinned against as African-American men. It's rarely a part of the discussion.
I am concerned as well about the deaths of the two African-American women. I know that in the Bland case it's complicated by the fact that she had some mental health issues which she discussed in FB videos if I recall correctly. I hope that there is a full and fair investigation of both the cases.
Hats off to you as well for pointing out eloquently and cogently that African-American women are as sinned against as African-American men. It's rarely a part of the discussion.
10
The FBI getting involved? Long overdue, but hopefully in time to prevent more of these horrors.
For those who have the fortune to have not experienced this aspect of the wonderful world of law enforcement because they're not subject to being stopped for DWB (Driving While Black), here's the usual scenario: Driver gets pulled over, gets pulled out of vehicle and cuffed, and then gets into even more trouble for daring to ask why she or he is being arrested for something that should earn, at worst, an ordinary citation. That's when things often get really physical, resulting in felony charges along the lines of 'resisting arrest with violence' (Never mind that it was the COP'S violence), with wore to happen later. Even if these unfortunates did commit suicide, how on earth can any reasonably decent human being justify having put them in that sort of horrendous situation for, basically, having done NOTHING?
Frank Zappa said it best in 'Trouble Every Day', and I can only agree with him: "And you know something, people? I'm not black, but there's a whole lot of times I wish I could say I'm not white."
For those who have the fortune to have not experienced this aspect of the wonderful world of law enforcement because they're not subject to being stopped for DWB (Driving While Black), here's the usual scenario: Driver gets pulled over, gets pulled out of vehicle and cuffed, and then gets into even more trouble for daring to ask why she or he is being arrested for something that should earn, at worst, an ordinary citation. That's when things often get really physical, resulting in felony charges along the lines of 'resisting arrest with violence' (Never mind that it was the COP'S violence), with wore to happen later. Even if these unfortunates did commit suicide, how on earth can any reasonably decent human being justify having put them in that sort of horrendous situation for, basically, having done NOTHING?
Frank Zappa said it best in 'Trouble Every Day', and I can only agree with him: "And you know something, people? I'm not black, but there's a whole lot of times I wish I could say I'm not white."
16
I am so sorry for the family of Sandra Bland. Assuming this was a suicide, it was a tragedy that perhaps could have been avoided. The Waller County Jail is required by the Texas Commission on Jail Standards to conduct a mental health screening on ALL inmates at the point of booking into the local jail. The form includes staff observations and self-report questions. If an individual is demonstrating signs and symptoms of mental illness, the sheriff must notify a magistrate within 72 hours. This process, for all jails, was designed to provide advocacy for the offender with attorneys, court personnel and/or bond release programs including referrals for further medical evaluation or treatment. Like all, I'll be interested in the outcome of this investigation, and improvements to the system that may result.
10
I come from a long line of cops as well as many friends who are cops in Chicago and Chicago suburbs as well as small Wisconsin towns. Every single copper I know say the same thing – make sure the dash cam in the squad car and the body cam on the uniform are working and are turned on. This is done to protect the cop from potential false accusations as well as to protect the public from potential and questionable police action. Every copper I know swears by the use of these cameras.
So how is it that in so many of the recent civilian interactions with police which eventually resulted in death, are none of these situations recorded by police? In this day and age, how is it that patrol cars DON’T have dash cams installed? I don’t know of one major street intersection, retail store, parking garage or office building that isn’t wired with surveillance cameras, so why aren’t police stations with holding cells? What seems odd is that a profession like law enforcement should be surrounded by surveillance equipment, across the board, but isn’t.
27
Lynching is as traditional and American as apple pie, and these deaths of blacks at the hands of police are inarguably a terrible, contemporary form of lynching. No one who thinks seriously can doubt that lynching in the Southern and border states has always been--and is now--a part of the American way.
14
It's bizarre that these two women might have committed suicide in their cells when it seems neither arrest would have resulted in long jail time or anything. But it's also bizarre that the prison guards would have staged suicides in order to murder these two women, with no profit in it for them and no reason for retaliation.
Like, the Rodney King beating was understandable in that it was provoked; Mr. King tried to run over two women cops with his car before being stopped, and their fellow cops were furious. But when someone, particularly a woman, has stolen a cellphone or slapped a public servant, it's tough to see the rationale for methodically killing her days later and covering it up.
There should definitely be an investigation but for these tragedies, I'm afraid the most likely discovery is that both women did actually commit suicide. People do for all sorts of stupid reasons, many tens of thousands in this country per year, and it's just hard to believe they would have been killed over nothing.
Like, the Rodney King beating was understandable in that it was provoked; Mr. King tried to run over two women cops with his car before being stopped, and their fellow cops were furious. But when someone, particularly a woman, has stolen a cellphone or slapped a public servant, it's tough to see the rationale for methodically killing her days later and covering it up.
There should definitely be an investigation but for these tragedies, I'm afraid the most likely discovery is that both women did actually commit suicide. People do for all sorts of stupid reasons, many tens of thousands in this country per year, and it's just hard to believe they would have been killed over nothing.
11
Why are the not cameras in every inch of our jails and prisons? Apparently we don't want to know when there is violence, rape or abuse.
26
We have so many jails I'd think the estimated cost would come to tens of billions of dollars, for installation and constant monitoring of all those hundreds of thousands of cameras. So in a cost benefit analysis, is the average prisoner's life worth that much money? And the logical answer is, no, sorry.
2
We have heard so many people claiming that our police force is bad.
It’s very sad and disappointing to hear such a collective judgement without personally knowing any police officer.
Those individuals are certainly wrong because they lacked personal courage to develop their premise into coherent statement.
If a significant portion of the police officers is bad, then the majority of the police officers are bad for tolerating wrongful behavior, then their bosses are equally bad, meaning our elected officials are terrible.
If our elected officials are bad, then our democracy and voters are equally bad.
Are those commentators claiming that they are personally bad?
If we were good, we would have fixed the problems long ago.
Is that what they are saying?
It’s very sad and disappointing to hear such a collective judgement without personally knowing any police officer.
Those individuals are certainly wrong because they lacked personal courage to develop their premise into coherent statement.
If a significant portion of the police officers is bad, then the majority of the police officers are bad for tolerating wrongful behavior, then their bosses are equally bad, meaning our elected officials are terrible.
If our elected officials are bad, then our democracy and voters are equally bad.
Are those commentators claiming that they are personally bad?
If we were good, we would have fixed the problems long ago.
Is that what they are saying?
2
You would have an easier time of showing that the "Afro-American race is more sinned against than sinning" if you picked better martyrs, Charles. But to date this is what you've given us - a truant who pummeled a security guard, a teen with a long sheet who robbed a store and attacked a cop, a low level heroin dealer who resisted arrest by a squad of multi-ethnic cops, a kid who was pointing a very real looking toy gun at people, a deadbeat serial dad who ran after scuffling with a cop, a drug dealer with numerous assault charges who died in a police van accident, and now these two modern day Rosa Parks - one who who was arrested for physically assaulting a cop (not for a lane change - LOL) and who knows what we'll find out about the other.
But the point is this. The black people who Wells was speaking of really were somewhat dignified and mostly innocent. They were sinned against. The ones who are fighting the law today are completely different, though - they often get arrested in the most idiotic and asinine ways imaginable, usually with violent resistance thrown in for good measure. They're sinners, and extremely hard to identify with. If you can't see this and understand why the "black lives matter" movement seems so ridiculous to most white, South Asian, Hispanic, and East Asian-Americans, then I'm not sure if you'll ever see the light.
But the point is this. The black people who Wells was speaking of really were somewhat dignified and mostly innocent. They were sinned against. The ones who are fighting the law today are completely different, though - they often get arrested in the most idiotic and asinine ways imaginable, usually with violent resistance thrown in for good measure. They're sinners, and extremely hard to identify with. If you can't see this and understand why the "black lives matter" movement seems so ridiculous to most white, South Asian, Hispanic, and East Asian-Americans, then I'm not sure if you'll ever see the light.
13
It doesn't seem ridiculous to me. Yeah, some black men are not the nicest people, but police are not entitled to kill.
The prison justice system is horribly unfair, to race and class. Jail and prison are brutal places where the inequities of the system is made clearest. But linking the suffering of prisoners to events that having not been proven and are essentially mythical renders you argument suspect, maybe you have to prove this story too.
1
My speculation: Bland probably knew her arrest was bogus and challenged the process. The police probably escalated the process to save face, and srrested her. There are a number of things that could have happened between the arrest, the commute in the squad car, the booking, questioning at the station, and in the cell. And it's my guess, the actions between led to Bland's death--suicide or not.
It's very important the FBI gets all the facts and shines some light on this, given the statistics that it is more than likely, statistically, that she would not commit suicide.
A smart black woman with the wit to dissect a bogus arrest may have been too much for insecure, power-hungry cops to manage. There is no telling how this could have escalated. But, it leading to suicide leaves me shaking my head.
It's very important the FBI gets all the facts and shines some light on this, given the statistics that it is more than likely, statistically, that she would not commit suicide.
A smart black woman with the wit to dissect a bogus arrest may have been too much for insecure, power-hungry cops to manage. There is no telling how this could have escalated. But, it leading to suicide leaves me shaking my head.
19
Dear PE,
I like your comments a lot, and happy belated birthday, but really your assumptions here are unwarranted. Seems like Bland struck a 'public servant', undoubtedly the arresting officer. Doesn't leave them any choice but to arrest her. Them killing her over it and covering it up, that seems so inexplicable and motivationless that I can't see how it could possibly have happened. If she'd shot a cop dead, then sure, but there doesn't seem to be any rationale to kill her, and cops may be racist but they're not usually that racist. I think she killed herself, and like with most suicides, we'll never know why.
I like your comments a lot, and happy belated birthday, but really your assumptions here are unwarranted. Seems like Bland struck a 'public servant', undoubtedly the arresting officer. Doesn't leave them any choice but to arrest her. Them killing her over it and covering it up, that seems so inexplicable and motivationless that I can't see how it could possibly have happened. If she'd shot a cop dead, then sure, but there doesn't seem to be any rationale to kill her, and cops may be racist but they're not usually that racist. I think she killed herself, and like with most suicides, we'll never know why.
1
Why aren't attorneys provided for those being locked up? If so, where were the attorneys?
6
Yes -- it was over the top to pull her over for a lane change. That's how small Texas towns operate, and it's a shame. I have also been pulled over for same and it took everything I had to not lose it. Especially considering I am an attorney, and the average small town cop has the IQ of room temperature.
However -- the chance of someone deliberately hanging this young woman is beyond the pale. After watching her in the news, sorry to the family, but she appears to be bipolar and a short fuse. Her behavior was fueled in anger -- an accident and cause waiting to happen. The autopsy should shed light on this except the conspiracy theorists will not be happy.
Regarding "Black Lives Matter," perhaps Blacks should adopt that mantra for their own behavior because in my view it seems that Blacks have far less respect for themselves and their own race and lives than Whites do. They shoot at each other for no reason. I ride the train with all manner of races everyday. It is the Black women who are screaming at, putting down, and swatting at their kids. Maybe Blacks should look at their own self-disrespectful behavior before criticizing others.
However -- the chance of someone deliberately hanging this young woman is beyond the pale. After watching her in the news, sorry to the family, but she appears to be bipolar and a short fuse. Her behavior was fueled in anger -- an accident and cause waiting to happen. The autopsy should shed light on this except the conspiracy theorists will not be happy.
Regarding "Black Lives Matter," perhaps Blacks should adopt that mantra for their own behavior because in my view it seems that Blacks have far less respect for themselves and their own race and lives than Whites do. They shoot at each other for no reason. I ride the train with all manner of races everyday. It is the Black women who are screaming at, putting down, and swatting at their kids. Maybe Blacks should look at their own self-disrespectful behavior before criticizing others.
14
Your point in your last paragraph is taken to heart. And taken to my broken heart. As a black person, it pains me to no end to see some of my own people behaving in such a disrespectful way to themselves and toward anyone who witnesses it. On a train, in a store, at a park, there is always a situation that validates stereotypes. So many of us are consciously aware that we are examples of our Black race all the time and we conduct ourselves with courtesy and decorum as should always be the case, and also hopeful that we're driving awareness that we're "not all like' that'." Yes, of course people of all races behave stupidly on a somewhat regular basis. But at such a very, very critical time for us ... seriously? You have to behave like that in public? You people leave me no choice but to revoke your Black card. Hand them over right now. You're no longer welcome in the club until you gain respect for yourselves and for others.
8
That's your experience. My experience has been that it is many middle age whites who display the bad beheavor, especially since Obama become president, especially many in the working class. As a black man, I have had many treat me with utter disrespect or even contempt for no reason whatsoever. Many seem to want to pick a fight with me so they could fulfill so inner perception they have of black men and many also seem to want things to escalate to the point they can call the police. I have had clerks in stores and banks treat me rudely or slow down their services deliberately to inconvenience me and then I have been asked to wait way beyond what was reasonable by such clerks deliberately to show their contempt of me as a black man. When I am at the front of the line say at UPS I have been asked to unnecessarily wait at the back of the line if one digit is out of place on the shipping form while I have to wait for whites who have only 1/10 of their forms filled out. I have had more than my share of white men who cut me off in traffic to let me know who is boss or deliberately ride on my tail to signal for me to get out the way in traffic even if I am ast or slightly over the speed limit, so please don't tell me about the poorly beheaved blacks and there polite considerate whites. There is more than enough bad beheavor by all races in today's society.
25
Several things. Why are you ordered outside your car for not signaling a lane change? Why is the officer slamming her head into the ground? I propose that no matter how obnoxious any person might be to a police officer, they are supposed to be trained to control the situation in a way that would not cause your head to be slammed into the ground. I also found it instructive that the officer told the onlooker recording the incident to stop filming. I did note that MSNBC described this young lady as an "activist". My understanding was that she moved to Texas to start a job, had no warrants out for her arrest, and certainly was not protesting as she drove down the road probably minding her own business. I find this claim of suicude concerning; however it sounds to me like she may have had some untreated injuries in that jail which is unacceptable. if you are taken into custody they have an obligation to get you treatment. So line up the civil attorneys.
25
it is and old story in southern jails . An arrest that may create problems for the police end up as a suicide . you could properly investigate every jurisdiction in the south . I.E Maury County Tennessee
22
You would think the readers of the august NY Times would have a greater critical thinking ability than what the majority of these comments reflect.
Cops did it - right? No evidence of that -- CB didn't present any. He also left out information. Sandra was not arrested for failing to signal but for assault.
And yet most of you sound convinced the cops did it. Why?
I'm perfectly willing to see what the investigation turns up. But, police have the presumption of innocence, just like anyone else. Even Southern police.
Of course this is another chance for haters to unload on the South, cops, Whites, the military...
Of course, I'd question why these women were put in jail. In Sandra's case I'd want to know about bail, etc. But, you can be put in jail for underage drinking, trespassing -- even if you're white. It happened to me. I think we should avoid incarceration whenever possible. And we should know why these women were in jail. But it's a long jump to murder.
So put your thinking caps on folks, think before you type. Why would the cops kill either of these women? Wouldn't they have screamed? Wouldn't there be some evidence of a struggle? What's the payoff for the cops? Does it really make sense that they'd kill either one? I'm not saying it couldn't happen -- but before you jump to the conclusion it was murder, does that make more sense than suicide?
Cops did it - right? No evidence of that -- CB didn't present any. He also left out information. Sandra was not arrested for failing to signal but for assault.
And yet most of you sound convinced the cops did it. Why?
I'm perfectly willing to see what the investigation turns up. But, police have the presumption of innocence, just like anyone else. Even Southern police.
Of course this is another chance for haters to unload on the South, cops, Whites, the military...
Of course, I'd question why these women were put in jail. In Sandra's case I'd want to know about bail, etc. But, you can be put in jail for underage drinking, trespassing -- even if you're white. It happened to me. I think we should avoid incarceration whenever possible. And we should know why these women were in jail. But it's a long jump to murder.
So put your thinking caps on folks, think before you type. Why would the cops kill either of these women? Wouldn't they have screamed? Wouldn't there be some evidence of a struggle? What's the payoff for the cops? Does it really make sense that they'd kill either one? I'm not saying it couldn't happen -- but before you jump to the conclusion it was murder, does that make more sense than suicide?
14
Well educate yourself as well. Sandra Bland was a young woman heading to a job at her alma mater in Texas. She gets pulled over by some guy who probably did not either when he pulled her over, and who escalated this stop into slamming a young woman to the ground, ends up sitting on her, and taking her to jail. A video of is available. That is NOT handling a traffic violation. The sheriff was cited on racist charges when he was police chief. You end up with someone as a suicide? That means you did NOT do your job.
18
More information needs to come out on the documented behavior of the Waller County Sheriff Smith which led to firing from his previous job as police chief in another town. I hope the FBI exerts as much influence as possible to ensure a thorough investigation of Ms. Bland's highly troubling and mysterious death. I don't trust the account given by the local authorities involved in her arrest and purported "suicide."
22
Georgia is a "guns everywhere" state, yet failing to signal a lane change is punishable by having your head smashed to the ground, followed by death--if you're black, that is. (What is the typical punishment for such a "crime," Georgia?). A black life is only measured by how its existence thwarts the pursuit of happiness by whites. Turns out that any infraction or perceived violation is worthy of death--if you're black, that is.
19
"Rightly", not "righteously", Mr. Blow.
I would go further. Sandra's "suicide" is flatly unbelievable. Everything about her contradicts it.
I would go further. Sandra's "suicide" is flatly unbelievable. Everything about her contradicts it.
15
Dear Thomas Zaslavsky,
Sorry, but wrongly assumed. You say "everything about her", but you know nearly nothing about her. Was she abused as a child, did she have a drinking problem, was she suffering tremendous debt, did her parents recently die? All unknown. The idea that prison guards killed her for the sole reason that she's black, is unbelievable, in this time, in this country. Other eras and countries it'd be highly believable but this is no longer the 50's.
Sorry, but wrongly assumed. You say "everything about her", but you know nearly nothing about her. Was she abused as a child, did she have a drinking problem, was she suffering tremendous debt, did her parents recently die? All unknown. The idea that prison guards killed her for the sole reason that she's black, is unbelievable, in this time, in this country. Other eras and countries it'd be highly believable but this is no longer the 50's.
2
Well of course if someone is not lily white and a west-northern European Christian they are not responsible for what they do, can not be criticized, are always dependent victims of others. Because if this perpetual victim hood and helpless were ever given up, allowed to disappear then our 1% would not have many millions of under educated people in poverty who would work for 1/3 of a living wage, whose votes could be purchased for a few welfare crumbs taken from what is left of our middle class. And above all an equality of criticism of none whites and all manner of invented ethnic and religious minorities that would pull them up out of the dysfunctional under class would eliminate our 1%'s excuse for flooding this nation with 10's of millions of immigrants to do jobs that our liberal 'feel your pain' academics, media and political class say Americans are too lazy to do (for slave wages).
4
I've made mistakes, minor ones, and been pulled over. I was generally polite to generally polite officers.
Once I was pulled over in what I considered to be an outrageous claim, by an argumentative and aggressive cop, a cop wearing a worn out uniform improperly buttoned too, a real clown. I told the officer just what I thought too. I suppose I might have been arrested, beaten, jailed without hearing for three days, all for being "belligerent." I wasn't, and never would have been.
Once I was pulled over in what I considered to be an outrageous claim, by an argumentative and aggressive cop, a cop wearing a worn out uniform improperly buttoned too, a real clown. I told the officer just what I thought too. I suppose I might have been arrested, beaten, jailed without hearing for three days, all for being "belligerent." I wasn't, and never would have been.
11
Suicide by hanging and murder by hanging is not acceptable in 2015, because it is relatively easily detected.
If there are no cameras in jail cells, then to me that infers the worst case scenarios are being passively if not deliberately allowed,
And of course cameras ought to be "sealed" in that they ought to be tamper-proof.
State governors/legislatures are morally responsible if not now legally responsible: they apparently pass the buck now.
Anything short of the above (to me) is a signal that belligerent/hated prisoners' lives in crises are constantly at risk.
At some time in the future if not now, prison murders and suicides will be looked upon for what they "negligently" are.
Please try to understand this: I am not against capital punishment in principle.
But It has been my hypothesis/conjecture that sometimes/often our chicken/ambivalent culture's capital punishment is by way of "informal prison justice."
If there are no cameras in jail cells, then to me that infers the worst case scenarios are being passively if not deliberately allowed,
And of course cameras ought to be "sealed" in that they ought to be tamper-proof.
State governors/legislatures are morally responsible if not now legally responsible: they apparently pass the buck now.
Anything short of the above (to me) is a signal that belligerent/hated prisoners' lives in crises are constantly at risk.
At some time in the future if not now, prison murders and suicides will be looked upon for what they "negligently" are.
Please try to understand this: I am not against capital punishment in principle.
But It has been my hypothesis/conjecture that sometimes/often our chicken/ambivalent culture's capital punishment is by way of "informal prison justice."
3
Inmates object to cameras in their cells. They rob them of the little privacy they have. However, the Texas jail has a hallway camera. No one has enter of leave the cells without being caught on camera. The video from the hallway camera shows no one entered Sandra Bland between the time she was served breakfast at 7 a.m. and the time she was found dead in her cell at 9. a.m. She responded when one of the jailers spoke to over the intercom at 8 a.m. It's impossible to tamper with a video with the tampering being detectible. It highly improbably jail personnel conspired to murder Bland, all the while knowing they would be the only possible suspects.
Just needed to add the obvious to another important column. Plain ordinary despair and oppression is also sinister.
4
Brittle authoritarians in law enforcement in contact with the public is now at the level of public menace.
What kind of applicant pool are we using who have no sense of proportion in their reactions? People who hate other people should not be in situations where MORE skills, not NO skills are needed. The people here actually made it worse! What is going on with these instances of grown men sitting on women with their knees in their backs? Loss of a young person's life for a cell phone? a lane change? The price of this kind of ignorance is tragedy. Unacceptable.
What kind of applicant pool are we using who have no sense of proportion in their reactions? People who hate other people should not be in situations where MORE skills, not NO skills are needed. The people here actually made it worse! What is going on with these instances of grown men sitting on women with their knees in their backs? Loss of a young person's life for a cell phone? a lane change? The price of this kind of ignorance is tragedy. Unacceptable.
25
It is not just these two. There are three cases in Southern California, one in Atlanta, one in Alabama, and another in Florida - over the last two years. At a certain point, no one should be surprised when groups resort to violent riots. If they are not going to get justice - they will take it. In America's history, when police where unavailable or corrupt, vigilantism was on the rise. It may happen again, but then one sees "innocent" police harmed. The police need to police their own.
13
From a woman of color perspective, there is a deep personal fear in getting pulled over by a police officer (especially for an infraction like speeding) and a deeper fear if the attending officer is a white male. That personal fear then gets heightened when you are told to step out of your vehicle, shut up, and spoken to like you are subhuman. That fear escalates to helplessness and hopeflessness and later shame once you are taken into police custody, booked and jailed. For a professional woman, this experience can have immediate negative emotional distress. We know that this experience will not only end our careers but it ruins future prospects of attaining a job. A police record and jail time will follow your sense of identity for years.
The entire police experience is meant to humiliate and exploit our emotion...as it was intended. For poor women of color, the experience breaks you down mentally and it appears from the officer's and the legal system perspectives... It's another day on the job without regard to who you are as a human and your future economic survival in this country.
What a terrible antiquated system and method of handling minor infractions. The entire police department needs to be updated with educated trainers, more women and women of color on the job, and meaningful exchanges when stopped for traffic infractions.
The entire police experience is meant to humiliate and exploit our emotion...as it was intended. For poor women of color, the experience breaks you down mentally and it appears from the officer's and the legal system perspectives... It's another day on the job without regard to who you are as a human and your future economic survival in this country.
What a terrible antiquated system and method of handling minor infractions. The entire police department needs to be updated with educated trainers, more women and women of color on the job, and meaningful exchanges when stopped for traffic infractions.
138
It most likely that Sandra Bland feared her Illinois driver's license had been suspended. It had been suspended three times and had been ordered suspended a fourth time. The fourth suspension would not have been effective July 31, but she may not have know this. She was also under parole for a drug possession conviction resulting for a previous traffic stop.
1
Everyone, please, look up and support and tell your friends the Say Her Name project. Black women's lives matter
There are hundreds of cases all over these United States of police stopping women followed by brutality, humiliation and death.
There has got to be a better way. Why are people put in jail for failure to use turn signal? Why are they even stopped for that?
Every police officer should be wearing body cameras. Every police stop should be justified by a real crime, not by racial profiling.
These deaths destroy families, arouse more anger and serve no purpose. They embarrass us as a nation.
There are hundreds of cases all over these United States of police stopping women followed by brutality, humiliation and death.
There has got to be a better way. Why are people put in jail for failure to use turn signal? Why are they even stopped for that?
Every police officer should be wearing body cameras. Every police stop should be justified by a real crime, not by racial profiling.
These deaths destroy families, arouse more anger and serve no purpose. They embarrass us as a nation.
61
People should be stopped for failing to use a turn signal, also for not stopping at stop signs. (That's how we can get those signals used and stop signs obeyed, which will help make driving safer and easier.) They should get tickets, and sent on their way, EVEN IF THEY ARGUE. It's this idea that you can't argue with a policeman that is the tip of the police-abuse iceberg.
11
I agree with Thomas. The officer should have stopped her and given her a citation and let her go about her way. Even if she did argue, that was no reason to pull her out the car and slam her to the ground (according to some news reports.) Thomas is correct in stating that it's the idea that you shouldn't "talk back" to the police that breeds this type of abuse.
2
So where are the coroner reports on these women? Hanging or self-strangulation are not that easy to do, and a serious autopsy would give us some vital facts.
27
The corner reports are part of the investigation that are already underway, Charles Blow demand for a investigation is simple a tactic to generate racial animosity. He knows the investigations are being conducted and realizes the findings will probably show the deaths were suicide, so he is tying to create as much commotion as possible before the results are announced. He did the same thing in other recent cases.
1
I want to see the video of the traffic stop for "changing lanes without signaling". If that went terribly enough so that it ended with the Police busting her for what was going on there and threatening her new career, I believe it's totally possible that this left Ms Bland dispirited enough to kill herself. She may have judged herself for the crime of DWB.
8
She was under parole for a drug possession conviction in Illinois and knew that the Texas arrest might revoke her parole,
1
Stopped for failing to signal a lane change? Are we expected to believe this and especially the results. I suspect the young woman, after living in Chicago, was not to be intimated by Mr. Police Officer; indeed, I suspect he found her quite uppity and disrespectful and needed to be put in her place. And he did so. Suicide? Hardly! Murder? Assuredly! This has got to stop and if it means Federal Marshalls taking over police forces, then it must be done.
39
Illinois had suspended Sandra Bland driver's license three times, and it was scheduled for a fourth suspension on July 31. At the time of her arrest in Texas, she was under parole for a drug possession conviction in Illinois that resulted from a traffic stop. She wasn't arrested for being uppity or disrespectful but for physically assaulting the state troop. He alleges she kicked him.
1
So these mysterious deaths happened in Texas and Alabama.
I know what I think.
I know what I think.
36
In response to Ryan Bingham (out there), which was a response to a post of mine. Sorry, but the way these blogs work there is no way to see all the responses to posts together once the original has dropped off the 'first page.'
Anyway, I live in Dekalb county. Atlanta, as you know is mostly Fulton. Here's a quote from a 2013 article in Creative Loafing, with which I presume you are familiar (the magazine - not the article):
"A new study looking at marijuana arrests across the country shows that African-Americans are arrested significantly more often than white people throughout the United States. And few areas display that trend more than Fulton and DeKalb counties."
Dekalb county is 54 percent black. In Fulton, whites actually slightly outnumber African-Americans. In Fulton the ratio of black to white in terms of those charged with simple possession is 7.5 to 1. In Dekalb it's 5.8 to 1.
Yeah, I know they don't enforce it all the time here for people of any race, but when they do enforce it, the selectiveness is pretty evident.
Anyway, I live in Dekalb county. Atlanta, as you know is mostly Fulton. Here's a quote from a 2013 article in Creative Loafing, with which I presume you are familiar (the magazine - not the article):
"A new study looking at marijuana arrests across the country shows that African-Americans are arrested significantly more often than white people throughout the United States. And few areas display that trend more than Fulton and DeKalb counties."
Dekalb county is 54 percent black. In Fulton, whites actually slightly outnumber African-Americans. In Fulton the ratio of black to white in terms of those charged with simple possession is 7.5 to 1. In Dekalb it's 5.8 to 1.
Yeah, I know they don't enforce it all the time here for people of any race, but when they do enforce it, the selectiveness is pretty evident.
13
Why was Sandra even arrested? As a white person, I have changed lanes many times without signaling at all. And then she was thrown to the ground on her head and said she "couldn't hear." Please, police behavior is unacceptable. I believe African-Americans will have to shut the system down to make any real change.
25
She was arrested for assaulting the state trooper, not for failure to signal while changing lane. The video doesn't show that she was thrown headfirst to the ground? Where did you get that allegation?
1
If there is foul play, and someone tried to 'hang her' in her cell, then it is inconveivable she would not have resited or screamed to alert others. It is not uncommon for people who have 'everything going for them' to do sad things to themselves.
Why can't you wait till the results of investigation are out and control your propensity to politicize every black death?
Why can't you wait till the results of investigation are out and control your propensity to politicize every black death?
12
There is a third option besides suicide from hanging and murder by hanging- for instance, she could have suffered a head injury from her arrest, which, left untreated, could have been fatal. When the jail saw that she died while in their custody, it is possible that they came up with the idea of staging her death as a suicide in order to get themselves off the hook. Of course, we know little so far, so none of us here commenting should be jump to any conclusions just yet.
2
It is "inconveivable [sic]" that she could have been drugged and then strung up?
I can conceive it.
I can conceive it.
1
I agree with the scenarios left by the other two posts. You mention, that, "it is inconveivable she would not have resited or screamed to alert others." Perhaps she did resist and scream and the other officers (as in many other cases of police brutality -Abner Louima for example) were in collusion and turned a deaf ear.
5
Yes, black women's lives DO matter, not just as helpmates and soothers to men, but in their own right. THANK YOU for speaking up.
16
Jailed for failing to use a turn signal? Half of my city would have been jailed by now. More significantly, it seems that now that the police are aware that their behavior can be so easily filmed by bystanders, they are waiting to use physical force until those arrested are out of public view and in jail.
26
This is what needs to happen in all places, because in my heart re: I am 99% sure this was murder. The Sheriff is a known racist, he was fired from a previous dept. for being so. Her head was slammed into the ground. Her bail was set for 5,000 dollars because she didn't use her blinker. There's been other suicides in this jail as recently as 2012. My Governor of NY State has taken any investigation re: a death of a civilian out of the hands of the local cops and DA's hands immediately. Even if they are being honest, which with the current NYPD Union I doubt it. This takes all pretenses that the investigation is tainted. Every State should do this NOW.
27
She was arrested for assaulting a public servant, an aggravated assault charges that carries a sentence of two to 20 years. The bond was set at $5,000 but she could have bonded out by paying $500 to the bail bondsman. Her family has arranged to bail her out the morning she was found dead. The arresting officer was a sate trooper who works for the Texas Department of Public Safety, not for the Waller Country Sheriff's Office. The sheriff, who had nothing to do with the arrest, is in charge of the country jail where she was held. He had been previously fired from a city police department for alleged incidents of misconduct, only some of which included allegations of racial bias. (Virtually all police offers are accused of racial bias.) No one things the sheriff snuck into the jail and murdered Sandra Bland.
2
In DC where I live, according to a recent report on NPR, the law defines "assaulting a police officer" so broadly that is can include nonviolent actions like yelling, slumping to the ground, or wiggling while handcuffed—even is the person being arrested has committed no other crime, even if the arrest is unlawful. 90% of those arrested for assaulting an officer are black. I would like to know more about the law in Texas and what type of "assault" Bland supposedly committed. Using "assault" as a ploy to arrest people at will is another layer of our country's disturbing police tactics that needs to be seriously examined.
161
In NJ a judge's instruction to the jury was that if the defendant curses at a police officer, he or she must be found guilty of assault. Touching an officer comstitutes battery and also requires a guilty verdict.
There is a lot of corrective action needed in the US these days to even approach fairness and equality under the law. Stupid laws don't help.
There is a lot of corrective action needed in the US these days to even approach fairness and equality under the law. Stupid laws don't help.
9
The bigger mystery to me is why so many black people then can't get through an encounter with a cop without "yelling, slumping to the ground, or wiggling while handcuffed." Must one always "keep it real" when pulled over for doing something stupid? If I change lanes without signaling, and have out of state plates, or drive with an expired tag, or have multiple unpaid tickets and a warrant against me - I'd probably try to play things a bit cooler than doing these things, and I imagine many others of other races would too.
So to me the issue isn't the cops. It seems to be the fact that black people are self selecting for arrest via a choice to engage in multi-channel stupidity and orneriness. And I'm not sure what the solution to this is - because even if you replaced every traffic cop with a camera and sensors placed in cars, you would still have a massive disparate impact, where black people wind up facing even more tickets, more fines, and more vehicle deactivations than any other race. I think now is the time to address this; the racist cop card is about to get retired by pervasive tech, and when it does, sympathy from law followers and tax payers for those who lack impulse control will be exhausted.
So to me the issue isn't the cops. It seems to be the fact that black people are self selecting for arrest via a choice to engage in multi-channel stupidity and orneriness. And I'm not sure what the solution to this is - because even if you replaced every traffic cop with a camera and sensors placed in cars, you would still have a massive disparate impact, where black people wind up facing even more tickets, more fines, and more vehicle deactivations than any other race. I think now is the time to address this; the racist cop card is about to get retired by pervasive tech, and when it does, sympathy from law followers and tax payers for those who lack impulse control will be exhausted.
The Texas state trooper who arrest Sandra Bland alleges that she kicked him and resisted arrest. An eyewitness who watch from across the street. She told a Houston television station that "She was telling him to get his so-and-so hands off of her and jerking away from him. She saw Bland end up on the ground, but said she "couldn't tell if he slammed her down there or it was a maneuver she did trying to stop him from putting her in the car that caused her to be put on the ground." The investigators will question witnesses.
4
white cops-sigh angry they lost the white house lost gay marriage lost the confederate flag take it out on BLACK/latinos/native americans every chance they get. they CONTRIVE excuses to pull people over question people walking CONSTANTLY.
example-I was walking in historic district of Roseville, California- Along comes a ROSEVILLE cop car with 2 white cops eyeballing us-I and a just happened to walking on the side walk black man.
they flip a u turn jump out demand ID-an illegal practice walking is not a crime or a suspicious action that allows police to DETAIN stop or question a person-I DID GO TO LAW SCHOOL.
the rule of the street DO NOT ANTAGONIZE the monkeys in blue suits they are PRIMITIVES with guns.
so the questioning began-where did you come from?I point to the biker bar-Where are you going-i point to the other biker bar-how did you get here?TAXI my reply.
then they question the black man.
WHY ARE YOU WALKING TOGETHER? -I am not walking with this man i dont know him he was allready walking when i crossed the street i just left an ANTI RACISM RALLY and I am walking to the bus stop.
BOTH COPS looked at eachother as if the OTHER was to blame for making them BOTH look like idiot fools obviously fishing for a crime.
they quickly exited the scene.
example-I was walking in historic district of Roseville, California- Along comes a ROSEVILLE cop car with 2 white cops eyeballing us-I and a just happened to walking on the side walk black man.
they flip a u turn jump out demand ID-an illegal practice walking is not a crime or a suspicious action that allows police to DETAIN stop or question a person-I DID GO TO LAW SCHOOL.
the rule of the street DO NOT ANTAGONIZE the monkeys in blue suits they are PRIMITIVES with guns.
so the questioning began-where did you come from?I point to the biker bar-Where are you going-i point to the other biker bar-how did you get here?TAXI my reply.
then they question the black man.
WHY ARE YOU WALKING TOGETHER? -I am not walking with this man i dont know him he was allready walking when i crossed the street i just left an ANTI RACISM RALLY and I am walking to the bus stop.
BOTH COPS looked at eachother as if the OTHER was to blame for making them BOTH look like idiot fools obviously fishing for a crime.
they quickly exited the scene.
11
I read about men killing with impunity on the high seas and now I read about two women dying in jail for no good reason what so ever. Men are violent killers when given the opportunity with no accountability. Police and sea faring sociopaths can be one in the same.
12
Thank you, Charles Blow, for "saying their names," to invoke a version of the recent campaigns to make the lives (and deaths) of Black women visible and give them equal value. Whether because Black women are ascribed less value currently, or because violence was, for us, ubiquitous -- sexual assault, and violence, including lynching -- from slavery forward, it's been hard to get people to name it, much less respond. Google is to be applauded for its Ida B. Wells doodle, but questioned for putting it out there without one word about her FORTY YEARS as an anti-lynching crusader. Until we, as a country, can #sayhername , tell her full history, and fight for her safety we will never be completely free of the vise of racism and sexism that continues to hold us fast.
55
Local newspapers and television stations began publishing the names as soon as next of kin were notified They always do, regardless of race, ethnicity or gender. The only difference race made is that the deatha would have received only local news coverage if the women had been white
1
Are there not "person checks" in jail ?
There was a routine 15" person check at my psychiatric hospital.
Failure to do so & documentation of same, would be "grounds for review".
There was a routine 15" person check at my psychiatric hospital.
Failure to do so & documentation of same, would be "grounds for review".
7
Yes. There are hourly checks, The hallway camera video shows that jailers served Sandra Bland breakfast at 7 a.m. on the morning of her death. At 8 a.m., she responded when a jailer spoke to over via the intercom. She was found dead when jailers checked her cell at 9 a.m. The hallway camera videotape shows no enter her cell that morning.
1
"Failure to signal a lane change"? Yep, that's right up there with "broken tail light" as an excuse for targeting black drivers.
27
All through the Kate Steinle coverage the past two weeks, pro-Sanctuary City voices insisted that one murder doesn't mean we trash the whole illegal-immigrant-friendly system.
Now that the damage comes to a politically protected class, one murder means a whole lot. We are left to wonder if Charles sees himself as a truth-teller or a selective truth-avoider?
Yes, this case looks as suspicious as Eric Holder thinking, ''No one will notice.'' If only the DOJ was as ready to investigate the Chattanooga shootings or the tragic Steinle murder as things affecting gays, Latinos, blacks, and the transgendered.This country has lost its way.
Now that the damage comes to a politically protected class, one murder means a whole lot. We are left to wonder if Charles sees himself as a truth-teller or a selective truth-avoider?
Yes, this case looks as suspicious as Eric Holder thinking, ''No one will notice.'' If only the DOJ was as ready to investigate the Chattanooga shootings or the tragic Steinle murder as things affecting gays, Latinos, blacks, and the transgendered.This country has lost its way.
7
Steve, If it was an official of the law that killed Ms. Steinle your analogy would be valid. Her killer was a mentally deranged person, and for what it is worth, the SF folks SHOULD HAVE handed him over to the Federal agents. Sanctuary laws are fine and dandy, but this was not an ordinary sanctuary case, was it?
In any case, the issue is not Ms. Steinle's race, and be fair, people immediately investigated the details of what happened there. They did not shrug it off. Truth matters.
In any case, the issue is not Ms. Steinle's race, and be fair, people immediately investigated the details of what happened there. They did not shrug it off. Truth matters.
1
As a young long haired man I had my share of runs in with policemen.
I learned to be polite and to treat them as fellow human beings, I consequently talked my way out of a couple stays in jail.
But I am white.
My family doesn't have a history with lynchings.
My biggest fear throughout my adult life has been the very real possibility of the U.S. becoming a police state. A sizable portion of us are fearful and feel more secure with authoritarian structure. Add the fear of people of color, the other, and we have a problem systemically.
Add the fact that we are trying to run the country on the cheap, hiring those who can't manage their jobs and not adequately funding training for the rest and I am surprised we don't see these stories every day.
Oh, wait. We do see them everyday.
I learned to be polite and to treat them as fellow human beings, I consequently talked my way out of a couple stays in jail.
But I am white.
My family doesn't have a history with lynchings.
My biggest fear throughout my adult life has been the very real possibility of the U.S. becoming a police state. A sizable portion of us are fearful and feel more secure with authoritarian structure. Add the fear of people of color, the other, and we have a problem systemically.
Add the fact that we are trying to run the country on the cheap, hiring those who can't manage their jobs and not adequately funding training for the rest and I am surprised we don't see these stories every day.
Oh, wait. We do see them everyday.
168
Unfortunately, at this point in time, it is impossible Not to take the word of our "trusted" authorities, with a Huge pile of "salt". .
11
Ms. Bland spoke to her relatives over the weekend before she died. She expressed concern that her shoulder had been broken after her encounter with the police. So it would be pretty difficult to fashion a noose for oneself with that sort of injury.
Also, are we saying that police officers cannot handle rough language because I live in Baltimore, and they do not follow Ms. Manners when speaking with the young people in my former neighborhood.
Also, are we saying that police officers cannot handle rough language because I live in Baltimore, and they do not follow Ms. Manners when speaking with the young people in my former neighborhood.
27
when I read this I think about the three simultaneous alleged "suicides" at Guantanamo and the officer's attribution of these to "asymmetrical warfare." there is something hugely wrong here. how did a turn signal violation land a young woman in jail for 3 days?? hopefully the autopsy will also check for evidence of sexual assault.
9
Is there anyone in America who doesn't know of a friend, family member or acquaintance who committed suicide, often after a seemingly minor disgrace, about whom it was said, "He (or she) seemed to have everything going for him. THis is inexplicable"
That's the nature of suicide. The fact that it happened to two black women in a nation of 310 million people within a relatively short period of time is probably not even statistically unusual.
The only reason it is a column in the New York Times is that we are in this hyper-aware atmosphere in which any death that happens in proximity to police is highly scrutinized.
The problem with lumping these suicides in with cases in which there is evidence of potential wrongdoing by authorities is that it distracts from the public's ability to focus outrage on real abuses. When the charge of police homicide is linked to every death, even when there is no evidence of it, people may stop caring when there is evidence.
That's the nature of suicide. The fact that it happened to two black women in a nation of 310 million people within a relatively short period of time is probably not even statistically unusual.
The only reason it is a column in the New York Times is that we are in this hyper-aware atmosphere in which any death that happens in proximity to police is highly scrutinized.
The problem with lumping these suicides in with cases in which there is evidence of potential wrongdoing by authorities is that it distracts from the public's ability to focus outrage on real abuses. When the charge of police homicide is linked to every death, even when there is no evidence of it, people may stop caring when there is evidence.
8
Failing to signal? Seriously? Let me help out over here. True reason for stop - DWB w/revenue generation potential. True reason for arrest - vocalized outrage (rightfully so) by "suspect". True cause of death - retaliation by belittled police and/or corrections officer(s), failure to employ body cameras on police, permissively racist and/or apathetic executive and legislative bodies in Walker County. You may now re-deploy the FBI agents to an area where an investigation is required.
11
Sure - because it makes perfect sense that a police officer who really wanted to lynch black women would plan to carry it out in a jail and randomly across state lines.
I noticed Mr. Blow somehow managed to overlook the fact the most recent suicide had a history of depression.
So - let's see - history of depression - new job - police arrest for outrageous behavior - suicide...
vs.
groups of phantom cops lynching people at their places of work across multiple states.
I noticed Mr. Blow somehow managed to overlook the fact the most recent suicide had a history of depression.
So - let's see - history of depression - new job - police arrest for outrageous behavior - suicide...
vs.
groups of phantom cops lynching people at their places of work across multiple states.
16
I read online from a Chicago paper Sandra Bland had mutiple speeding tickets and DWI arrest, that she had not paid fines for. I can see getting upset about being pulled over...again... and wondering if there was a warrant out for her arrest. I can see getting depressed stuck in jail, wondering if her job would be lost since she could not be there to start it.....and then having to go home to Chicago and explain to family and friends why she was back with no job. Its a sad story.
I do think it is good that a small town police department and jail are getting investigated and reminded/reprimanded for what the guidelines are. It makes it safer for everyone. I wish there was a feeral program that evaluated small town police forces on a regular basis and didn't wait for tragedy to happen.
I do think it is good that a small town police department and jail are getting investigated and reminded/reprimanded for what the guidelines are. It makes it safer for everyone. I wish there was a feeral program that evaluated small town police forces on a regular basis and didn't wait for tragedy to happen.
46
I have been wondering how many people have been stopped for failing to signal a lane change in this Texas town. More to the point, what is the statistical breakdown of those arrests by race and sex?
9
Sandra Bland may very well have taken her own life, we just don't know. But the question of why she was in jail for 3 days is where I am having trouble. Is it that she was pulled over for failing to signal, challenged an officer who in response arrested her? (She was "uncooperative and belligerent"). I can process all of that happening. But three days in jail? Where is the process? Surely she was seen by a magistrate or a judge? Bail? Had counsel to represent her? Contacted her family? Where is this information? Come on! These are easy questions that should be answered regardless of whether she committed suicide!
297
Ralphie,
Charles Blow is an opinion columnist. Before writing my comment, I looked at many, many news reports to find the answers to my questions. Mr. Blow's column gave me an opportunity to ask them and I am very grateful to him for writing this piece. It is not just that something sinister may have happened concerning the deaths of these young women but the criminal "justice" system that put them in a place where their deaths occurred.
Charles Blow is an opinion columnist. Before writing my comment, I looked at many, many news reports to find the answers to my questions. Mr. Blow's column gave me an opportunity to ask them and I am very grateful to him for writing this piece. It is not just that something sinister may have happened concerning the deaths of these young women but the criminal "justice" system that put them in a place where their deaths occurred.
2
only
as was once famously said, you're entitled to your own opinions but not your own facts. CB cherry picks fact routinely. In this case, he offers no facts other than the two women were Black and in custody. The criminal justice system over relies on jail time as punishment, no doubt. But at this point, it's a huge leap to suggest it was murder.
as was once famously said, you're entitled to your own opinions but not your own facts. CB cherry picks fact routinely. In this case, he offers no facts other than the two women were Black and in custody. The criminal justice system over relies on jail time as punishment, no doubt. But at this point, it's a huge leap to suggest it was murder.
1
A police officer once told me that "50% of arrests result from hurt feelings," when the officer perceives a threat to his authority rather than an actual legal infraction. With the current infusion of ex-military men into police departments, they present an overly aggressive win/lose style of interaction with citizens. Plus, they are coming from a hyper masculine hierarchal military culture in which one must always "obey orders". And God only knows what levels of PTSD they are carrying around...
34
Most arrests result from 911 calls.
You do not cocern yourself with the facts, just the end result and therein lies your problem more than once. She was argumentative with the trooper and refused to follow his instructions. She attempted to kick him We're the police aware of her mental history? Isn't it true departments have procedures in place for potential sucide victims?
I worked for the California Department of Corrections. Our unit was a 50 unit, 2 to a room except for theend rooms. The written poliicy was we were required to do a hallway check every 30 minutes. We had to see their face see them breathing, look for any sign they had harmed themselves
If anyone gave us a direct or indirect indication we immediately called the duty Lt who would
take them to Redwood. Therte were suicide rooms there. They only had a mattress and thick covering No sheets, no shoelaces They were on camera 24/7 The psychiatrist would do a comprehensive evaluation and r,they were not taken offuntil deemed not a risk
It's rather sad you try to find racism in even tragic situations. The fact is you look for them so you can write columns like these. You have no clue what goes own but draw the conclusion you want so implied racism or negligence can be implied Try working for 23 years and then question themanner in which I did my job Not one person died on my watch!!
I worked for the California Department of Corrections. Our unit was a 50 unit, 2 to a room except for theend rooms. The written poliicy was we were required to do a hallway check every 30 minutes. We had to see their face see them breathing, look for any sign they had harmed themselves
If anyone gave us a direct or indirect indication we immediately called the duty Lt who would
take them to Redwood. Therte were suicide rooms there. They only had a mattress and thick covering No sheets, no shoelaces They were on camera 24/7 The psychiatrist would do a comprehensive evaluation and r,they were not taken offuntil deemed not a risk
It's rather sad you try to find racism in even tragic situations. The fact is you look for them so you can write columns like these. You have no clue what goes own but draw the conclusion you want so implied racism or negligence can be implied Try working for 23 years and then question themanner in which I did my job Not one person died on my watch!!
14
I'm glad to hear that your department had such good policies and such good outcomes. Unfortunately, many departments across the country do not. We need more of them.
As far as the current cases, they don't seem to have such policies.
Furthermore.one of the officers involved was let go from a prior PD/SD due to racism, as has been the case in other police involved deaths.
There must be a better screening of police candiadates. We must do better.
As far as the current cases, they don't seem to have such policies.
Furthermore.one of the officers involved was let go from a prior PD/SD due to racism, as has been the case in other police involved deaths.
There must be a better screening of police candiadates. We must do better.
1
I keep assuming in the world of policing that there is a set of protocols for say, use of deadly force or making an arrest or jailing and individual or placing an individual in a van. It appears, in the cases that have appeared in the media and when the chiefs respond to questions, there are no protocols or at least no one is following them.
6
Prison suicides are common. http://www.nbcnews.com/news/other/suicides-kill-more-inmates-homicide-ov.... Suicides don't follow an obvious trigger.
While police misconduct is -- alas -- not rare, your persistent efforts to racialize such matters is extremely problematic. In each of the high profile cases of late, the leftist narrative was wrong. Martin was killed as he pummeled someone. Brown was killed as he attacked a cop, and never once said, "hands up, don't shoot". Gray appears to have died in an accident. And there was nothing obviously racial about Garner's death.
How 'bout this? STOP IT. In the unlikely, although possible, event, of official criminality in either of these deaths, prosecute and protest to your hearts content. But stop with the racial conspiracy mongering. At present, this isn't a story; speculation rarely is. It simply represents ginning up the leftist racial base, concocting resentment and suspicion when there exists no reason for either.
Please feel free to write about how the NJ Democrats eliminated $2M in opportunity scholarship money, which would have helped poor kids escape failed public schools; the only $$ in the entire proposed budget they cut. Write about how BHO would deny to poor kids the educational opportunity he accorded his own daughters, all to placate the Teachers Union. THAT is a real story of hurting Black kids, well worth reporting.
While police misconduct is -- alas -- not rare, your persistent efforts to racialize such matters is extremely problematic. In each of the high profile cases of late, the leftist narrative was wrong. Martin was killed as he pummeled someone. Brown was killed as he attacked a cop, and never once said, "hands up, don't shoot". Gray appears to have died in an accident. And there was nothing obviously racial about Garner's death.
How 'bout this? STOP IT. In the unlikely, although possible, event, of official criminality in either of these deaths, prosecute and protest to your hearts content. But stop with the racial conspiracy mongering. At present, this isn't a story; speculation rarely is. It simply represents ginning up the leftist racial base, concocting resentment and suspicion when there exists no reason for either.
Please feel free to write about how the NJ Democrats eliminated $2M in opportunity scholarship money, which would have helped poor kids escape failed public schools; the only $$ in the entire proposed budget they cut. Write about how BHO would deny to poor kids the educational opportunity he accorded his own daughters, all to placate the Teachers Union. THAT is a real story of hurting Black kids, well worth reporting.
10
Oops, you forgot the killings of Tamir Rice and John Crawford by police on video in an open carry state. The point that you miss is that police are not authorized to summarily execute anyone. And it is striking that these executions NEVER happen to well-connected whites. For that matter they never happened to members of organized crime families (murderers!). How many members of an organized crime family were ever killed by a beat cop?
And public schools only "failed" because white flight guaranteed their failure by removing the tax base. Do suburban schools also fail?
And public schools only "failed" because white flight guaranteed their failure by removing the tax base. Do suburban schools also fail?
4
So "relatively minor crimes" according to Blow include assaulting a police officer and robbery - these are the actual crimes committed by the two women. Facts matter.
8
What happened during the "assault" on the police officer? Touching a police officer, even brushing his hand away or waving an arm and accidentally brushing the officer or part of his uniform, even grazing it inadvertently, qualifies.
I love the ideas of police officers wearing body cameras.
I love the ideas of police officers wearing body cameras.
I have to agree with some of the other posts. What aren't jail cells covered by security cameras? If not actively monitored at least the recordings could answer lots of questions.
10
It is astounding that of all the incisive and compelling commentary from your readers, the "NYT Picks" are about paying police officers more, talking about the theoretical possibility that a woman jailed for not using a turn signal to shift lanes would hang herself, and that the incomprehensible death of two women in jail merits attention only for mattering "equally!"
On what basis exactly are you making your "Picks?"
One suggestion: find a completely different set of staff to make your "Picks."
On what basis exactly are you making your "Picks?"
One suggestion: find a completely different set of staff to make your "Picks."
5
Keep beating the drum Mr. Blow. I mean that sincerely.
9
I can't see committing suicide over a minor traffic ticket, unless she panicked over how she was going to be treated. I guess we'll never know if she was threatened to the point of panic. Either way, you have a good point.
2
When your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. In Mr. Blow's case his only tool is race so everything looks like racism to him.
Statistics show us that mental illness is more prevalent among those in prisons and jails. In fact the police have become our de facto mental health system. So yes, let's investigate these deaths fully but I'll be very surprised if there is anything more to these deaths than negligence in not putting someone on suicide watch or not monitoring them more closely.
Statistics show us that mental illness is more prevalent among those in prisons and jails. In fact the police have become our de facto mental health system. So yes, let's investigate these deaths fully but I'll be very surprised if there is anything more to these deaths than negligence in not putting someone on suicide watch or not monitoring them more closely.
10
Sometime soon a new film recounting "The Stanford Prison Experiment" will be released. Google the title or see the movie. You will learn all you need to know in order to understand how otherwise normal people granted nearly unrestricted authority over others deemed to have offended authority ("broke the law") can individually commit evil. Whatever the facts in this case are, the pattern of Africa-Americans as victims of state violence will continue where ever they are considered by those with power over them to be less human than themselves.
14
Suicide while under the ‘care’ of the State is pretty sinister in itself, let alone the probability of murder by police.
8
If drivers in central Ohio were jailed for not using turn signals the jails would need to house a lot more than half of the people in Columbus.
So a black driver in Texas is arrested for not using a signal. I wonder how many pickup truck drivers displaying confederate flags were charged with that same offense during that week?
Anyone who can not see that black Americans face life threatening racism from their own government each and every day is simply not paying attention.
So a black driver in Texas is arrested for not using a signal. I wonder how many pickup truck drivers displaying confederate flags were charged with that same offense during that week?
Anyone who can not see that black Americans face life threatening racism from their own government each and every day is simply not paying attention.
21
She wasn't arrested for not giving a turn signal. She was arrested for assaulting the state trooper. There are eyewitnesses. The circumstances of the arrest are being investigated along with the death, which occurred three days later. Bland also had her troubles with Illinois police. Her Illinois driver's license had been suspected three times and was about to be suspended a fourth time on July 31. She was also under Illinois court supervision for a drug conviction at the time of her arrest in Texas. Your Confederate flag allusion is delusion.
3
A few years back while driving down a side road I failed to see a school zone sign. It was tiny, partially hidden by foliage. Not the usual big school zone signs with flashing lights. And the private school itself was hidden from view so except for the small sigh, there was no evidence of a school nearby. I was innocently driving 40 mph, the speed limit for that road. A policeman was near by and came after me. I was pulled over. I told him I didn't see the sign. His response: "That's what every one says." But it was true the sign was hidden. However, being taught to go with the flow regarding law enforcement, I didn't resist or fight back. As requested, I gave him my license and whatever other paperwork he requested. Afterwards, he went to his patrol car and stayed there for way too long. Was he taking a break? I didn't know but I simply sat and waited even though I felt there was some disrespect because I'm a woman or for some other reason. I doubt the officer would have made a man wait as long. The point is I knew not to resist. Not only was I trained that way, I am also aware of the difficult job of law enforcement. I'm aware each officer has undoubtedly accumulated a number of bad experiences dealing with aggressive dangerous people. Thus, being human, they would have a learned survival tendency to see others, even one tiny woman driving an old Camry, as potentially dangerous too.
6
Now that our lives are transparent and every patrol car has a computer with database interfaces the officer is investigating you to see if you have any outstanding warrants.
1
The difference is, you weren't pulled out of your car and slammed to the ground during your arrest.
3
The video cam showed Sandra Bland being pulled from her car and thrown to the ground.
3
A "history of depression" does not equal with suicidal. Depression is common illness, most forms have mild if disruptive symptoms that have nothing todo with suicidal thoughts. The gulf between depression and serious, clinical depression that can lead to suicide is huge. No wonder people are hesitant to seek help if they are labeled this way.
And Doug correctly points out a realty that law enforcement officials think that any discussion or challenge is resistance and should be met with force. The taking down and murder of Ed Gardner is most illustrative. they don't proceed incrementally but quickly, physically and forceful- and it would be normal for a person to pull away, push back, resist when that police action is executed inappropriately or unexpectedly. and without film, she is presumed guilty because the officer said so. unfortunately, my trust of police officers' honesty is low.
And Doug correctly points out a realty that law enforcement officials think that any discussion or challenge is resistance and should be met with force. The taking down and murder of Ed Gardner is most illustrative. they don't proceed incrementally but quickly, physically and forceful- and it would be normal for a person to pull away, push back, resist when that police action is executed inappropriately or unexpectedly. and without film, she is presumed guilty because the officer said so. unfortunately, my trust of police officers' honesty is low.
203
Again, comments without all the information. On Sandra Bland, news has appeared that she suffered with depression. Also video has appeared where she curses and acts out while being arrested. (She was not arrested for a lane change, she was stopped for the change. How many of us have been "surprised by an unsignaled lane change that could have resulted in an accident?) Would a person in jail, with a history of depression feel that perhaps news of her arrest would possibly kill her new job, causing her suicide? As for Kindra, I'm unfamiliar with her circumstances, so I will not comment.
2
I think people are rightly criticizing Blow for not mentioning that she was arrested for resisting arrest and assaulting the cop who arrested her, not for the lane change. But people are acting like somehow leaving out that piece of information changes everything. Come on, how likely is it that a person who is an outspoken activist commits suicide over this sort of arrest? It's reasonable to surmise that she may have felt she was pulled over for "driving while black." (A lane change without signaling? I guess I am lucky I am not doing hard time in Graterford.) This is exactly the sort of thing she was committed to protesting and changing! I cannot see how this could possibly lead to her committing suicide. She does not seem like the kind of person who would have crumbled in defeat over THAT - if anything it should have further energized her. And again, unless we have video showing exactly what this "assault" consisted of, it's awfully convenient that of the two people who know exactly what happened when the cop pulled her over, one of them is dead.
It's possible she killed herself - perhaps she had problems others were completely unaware of - but I have to agree other scenarios suggest themselves as equally if not more plausible.
It's possible she killed herself - perhaps she had problems others were completely unaware of - but I have to agree other scenarios suggest themselves as equally if not more plausible.
9
The video cam show her being pulled out of the car by the Officer and thrown to the ground. Maybe she mouthed off while in the car, but that is not assault and not a reason for being arrested. As for the reason for being pulled over, have you ever made a turn and not signalled?
3
Stop accusing Mr.Blow for not mentioning what he DID mention, which was this:
"As The New York Times reported last week: Bland 'was arrested last Friday in Waller County by an officer with the Texas Department of Public Safety on a charge of assaulting a public servant. She had been pulled over for failing to signal a lane change.' "
He very clearly stated the facts.
"As The New York Times reported last week: Bland 'was arrested last Friday in Waller County by an officer with the Texas Department of Public Safety on a charge of assaulting a public servant. She had been pulled over for failing to signal a lane change.' "
He very clearly stated the facts.
6
It seems more plausible to you that jailers would risk execution or life in prison to murder a complete stranger, knowing full well they would be the only suspects in a murder investigation? It not as if black suspects have never been guests at the Waller County Jail. African Americans make up 25 percent of he country's population. Whey would they single out Sandra Bland to murder. What would have been their motive?
1
There's a reason that many of the same personality types that are drawn to enlisting in the Military are also attracted to joining the police force. These individuals know that by the simple act of putting on a law enforcement badge they are suddenly in control and exert an immense amount of power. Similar to being "El Chapo" Guzman or the biggest baddest street due on the block except legitimized by society. Whenever they feel like it, they can pull anyone over for any minor traffic infraction including illegal lane change or broken tail light, hoping to find some extra ticket revenue for their small hamlet. Small towns in the South, especially Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia or Louisiana are notorious for this type of heavy handed swagger. This corrupt Southern hick trope was encapsulated in the famous movie titled, "In the Heat of the NIght" starring Sydney Poitier & Rod Steiger. The movie provided an in-depth portrayal of the interactions between a highly educated and well mannered black man from the North and the small minded Southern police, mayor and wealthy plantation owner. Unlike the movie, there will be no Poitier solving the case and changing the hearts and minds of the town folk. Let's hope that the FBI are able to investigate & provide a satisfying explanation for why these women were found hung to death under police custody instead of allowing these deaths to be swept under the rug thus enabling this type of heavy handed law enforcement to continue.
14
Since there are no jobs for returning veterans, every effort is being made to place them in police departments. So, no wonder the police act like an occupying army.
3
Before too much is made of Ms. Bland's self-diagnosis of depression and PTSD, let's remember that that happened in March, and that there is no indication that she was suicidal. Apparently those videos often focused on the ongoing executions of unarmed black men (and children!) at the hands of law enforcement. African Americans who are paying attention could probably be diagnosed with depression and PTSD, as a rational response, not only to the daily assaults on their dignity, but to the violent hatred that they still have to endure, in "post-racial" America, in 2015.
16
I wish that every time a woman was killed or committed suicide in the US there would be an equal amount of media coverage as well as social media hashtag campaigns and hot white light scrutiny. The mantra "Black Lives Matter" is an important movement although "All Lives Matter" would be a better mantra for feminists since the reality is that more women have died at the hands of domestic violence than in all of the wars that the US has waged. Every day 3 women die on average at the hands of a current or former male partner in the US. 38,028,000 women have experienced physical intimate violence during the course of their lifetimes. 4,774,000 women will experience violence every year although women with disabilities are 40% more likely to become a victim. 1,509 women died of domestic violence last year with 20 people every minute experiencing violence inflicted by the hands of another. Men who witness domestic violence during their childhood are four times more likely to become abusers as adults. A woman is beaten every 9 seconds in the US. Intimate violence is the leading cause of death during pregnancy. All of the victims of violence will remain anonymous unless the media decides that this is a serious societal issue that demands answers. Violence doesn't necessary detect skin color as women of all races, incomes & backgrounds are potential victims. So Sandra & Kindra are unfortunate victims although they are just the tip of the painful iceberg.
9
The Texas media are reporting Ms. Bland hanged herself with a trash bag. Is that even possible? Maybe the ones in the jailhouse are made of stronger stuff than the ones I buy at Target. We know she sustained a head injury during the arrest, and we also know that head trauma can lead to sudden death a day or two later from internal bleeding, even if the victim did not lose consciousness at the time of the injury. There was a professional skier who died that way about 6 years or so ago. So, I'd like to see an independent autopsy. Even if she was actually found hanging (the official statements I have read are a bit vague on that), I have to wonder what role any mental confusion may have played if she was suffering effects from an internally worsening head injury.
22
Mr. Blow, you didn't mention that in Sandra Bland's case, the officer in question had been fired elsewhere for racism. In addition, Ms. Bland was pulled from the car by the police. Pulled from the car and slammed to the ground for failure to use a turn signal.
The police in this country are getting a pretty bad name because of the acts of these violent officers, who seem to be everywhere. If an officer didn't do it, they hired and supervised those who did, or stood there watching. I'd say we're way past time to retrain all the police forces in the country to use nonviolent responses first, second, and third before slamming people to the ground face down causing broken teeth, noses and head injury, before shooting someone unarmed, before choking them to death, roughing them up in the car, or at the station, or worse.
That women are also subject to police violence isn't surprising in the least. That they aren't in the news as much is also not surprising. Women are always last. We all know that. If we object, we are derided, threatened, or worse, and few men speak up when another does this. So thanks for a column pointing out that black women are also subject to the profiling, the violence, the murderous acts of police, that black female lives matter. It's getting pretty revolting, isn't it, when a young woman about to start a new job, new life, dies because of driving while black. And of course, the police in question will be investigated and then sent back to work.
The police in this country are getting a pretty bad name because of the acts of these violent officers, who seem to be everywhere. If an officer didn't do it, they hired and supervised those who did, or stood there watching. I'd say we're way past time to retrain all the police forces in the country to use nonviolent responses first, second, and third before slamming people to the ground face down causing broken teeth, noses and head injury, before shooting someone unarmed, before choking them to death, roughing them up in the car, or at the station, or worse.
That women are also subject to police violence isn't surprising in the least. That they aren't in the news as much is also not surprising. Women are always last. We all know that. If we object, we are derided, threatened, or worse, and few men speak up when another does this. So thanks for a column pointing out that black women are also subject to the profiling, the violence, the murderous acts of police, that black female lives matter. It's getting pretty revolting, isn't it, when a young woman about to start a new job, new life, dies because of driving while black. And of course, the police in question will be investigated and then sent back to work.
48
The officer who stopped and arrested Sandra Bland had never been fired for racism or accused of racism. The Waller County sheriff, Glenn Smith, had been previously fired by the City of Hempstead after several allegations of police misconduct, not all of which involved racial issues. Smith had nothing to do with the arrest and the state trooper who made the arrest works for the Texas Department of Public Safety, not the Waller County Sheriff's Office. However, Smith is responsible the operation of the country jail where Bland allegedly committed suicide.
2
i understand the racial and individual focus in this case. i personally believe the death of sandra is highly suspicious.
the real theme here is that the US criminal justice system is a joke -- a sick, pathetic travesty of a joke. police brutality and prisoner deaths are only a small part of the overall picture that includes prison violence and rape, racial disparities in conviction and incarceration, legal protections raised by law around corporations and specific trades, prosecutorial misconduct and negligence ... the list just goes on and on.
i pity anyone involved with the criminal justice system in this country -- plaintiff or defendant, judge or jury, police or prosecutor. it's a sham, a shame, a humiliation, and a misery.
the real theme here is that the US criminal justice system is a joke -- a sick, pathetic travesty of a joke. police brutality and prisoner deaths are only a small part of the overall picture that includes prison violence and rape, racial disparities in conviction and incarceration, legal protections raised by law around corporations and specific trades, prosecutorial misconduct and negligence ... the list just goes on and on.
i pity anyone involved with the criminal justice system in this country -- plaintiff or defendant, judge or jury, police or prosecutor. it's a sham, a shame, a humiliation, and a misery.
16
Any time a person dies in police custody, there is a failure of the justice system to protect their life. This business of Sandra and Kindra is more of the standard "blame the victim" mentality that resulted in the deaths of Eric, Treyvon, Tamir and so many others.
224
Unfortunately both political correctness and conservatism often act in concert to prevent a balanced analysis of evidence I these types of cases. Just as excessive force and racism among police is real, so too is, in many cases, a measure of culpability reasonably attributable to the "victim." The media exploits absolute polarization for the sake of ratings.
It does help that Blow and others keep the spotlight on these cases. The Bland case was suspicious at best and does demand investigation. I do have one hypothesis I have not read elsewhere, but one that could be forensically investigated.
It may be that Bland was denied a common medication for anxiety or depression, which could have dire consequences within two days. This would certainly make the police culpable, though intent would be impossible to prove.
Glad to hear the FBI is involved. The initial announcement that it would be "thoroughly investigated by the Texas Rangers" was hardly reassuring.
It may be that Bland was denied a common medication for anxiety or depression, which could have dire consequences within two days. This would certainly make the police culpable, though intent would be impossible to prove.
Glad to hear the FBI is involved. The initial announcement that it would be "thoroughly investigated by the Texas Rangers" was hardly reassuring.
15
In so many cases of police shootings, it was reported that the accused was resisting arrests. Then as cell phone cameras became common place, we began to see that in many cases these shootings were without provocation. The shootings were sometimes committed by police officers with inadequate training and experience.
How many jail house suicides were really suicides? Are that many people giving up on life that quickly? Why aren’t there cameras in each jail cell keeping a 24 hour record of prisoner activities? If police departments can acquire military grade weapons, a way can be found to equipped jails with cameras to monitor the prisoners.
Perhaps the presence of cameras that are monitoring jail cells would result in a sudden drop in suicides.
How many jail house suicides were really suicides? Are that many people giving up on life that quickly? Why aren’t there cameras in each jail cell keeping a 24 hour record of prisoner activities? If police departments can acquire military grade weapons, a way can be found to equipped jails with cameras to monitor the prisoners.
Perhaps the presence of cameras that are monitoring jail cells would result in a sudden drop in suicides.
254
Cameras in jail cells would be a horrifying invasion of privacy, as inmates sleep, use the bathroom and so on in front of a camera.
3
The video in the Bland case starts after she is already on the ground and being handcuffed. However, an eyewitness who watched from across the street told a Houston TV station that "She was telling him to get his so-and-so hands off of her and jerking away from him." The offers claims she kicked him after he ordered her out of the car.
3
Have you ever seen the inside of a jail? There is absolutely no privacy. As much as I would like cameras in every cell (I'm a retired defense attorney), cameras are quickly broken in jails. Some by inmates some by the jailers. Physical and mental abuse by jail personnel is so frequent that it is appalling.
2
CB has drawn the wrong inference and thus the wrong conclusion. What is most likely is that mental health issues once investigated will be contributing factors. The Texas DPS is a professional sate wide police force that has a high number of black officers, and the Texas case plus her videos that have surfaced portray a troubled individual. Don't know much about the Alabama defendant other than a significant number of theives have drug problems. What we have consistently seen is that a high percentage of so called racial bias law enforcement cases portrayed in the media, have really no racial bias but are usually the caused by the decedent's own outrageous conduct. The national media fueled snipe hunt has actually resulted in skyrocketing crime rates. Still waiting for CB to call out Mosby et vir in Baltimore for making the initial demand for agressive policing that lead to Freddie's death. But I guess black on black crime doesn't fit the media narrative.
6
I believe the suspicious violence against these two women is part of a backlash reaction to removing the confederate flag, the Supreme Court decisions on same-sex marriage and the Affordable Health Care Act, and the indictment of the 6 police officers in Baltimore. Perceived by some as victories these are significant loss of ground on a systemic level for others.
Our nation's recent attention to Black-lives-at-risk exposes an assault that has been taking place, off the record, for several centuries and continues in our presence today. For the assailants, the usual response to losing ground is to turn up the heat somewhere else. I can't help remembering how the March On Washington in 1963 was followed one month later by the bombing of the church in Alabama. The timing was not a coincidence.
I would rather be wrong about this, but I expect an increase of suspicious violence as we continue to expose and challenge structural pockets of racial (and other) injustice.
Our nation's recent attention to Black-lives-at-risk exposes an assault that has been taking place, off the record, for several centuries and continues in our presence today. For the assailants, the usual response to losing ground is to turn up the heat somewhere else. I can't help remembering how the March On Washington in 1963 was followed one month later by the bombing of the church in Alabama. The timing was not a coincidence.
I would rather be wrong about this, but I expect an increase of suspicious violence as we continue to expose and challenge structural pockets of racial (and other) injustice.
215
We don't know that there was any violence against these two women, do we? If there was, yeah, I'll be particularly upset (being a black man, with a sister who could just as easily meet the same fate). Still, we can't fall into the trap of jumping to conclusions. Note that blow says the second woman "allegedly" stole a cell phone. He rightly assumes she did NOT steal the phone because he has no evidence or personal knowledge that she did. By the same token, we should not assume there was a murder until we have evidence that there was.
12
We do know that Sandra was slammed to the ground on her head; there is a video with her voice, screaming at the officer.
2
Very suspicious. With cameras everywhere, I wonder why jails aren't fitted out with cameras. Is it that they would reveal too much?
13
The jails has no camera in the cells, but it does have a hallway camera. The videotape shows that guards served Sandra Bland breakfast at 7 p.m. and that no one entered her cell between 7 p.m. and 9 a.m. when she was found dead.
3
Gimme a break! All lives matter. Unless you can put the problem into proper perspective; it's just race baiting with a feminist twist. How many imprisoned white, latino and asian ended up dead in jail without obviously compelling reasons? Does this happen to blacks less often in Waller Country that other races? If Waller is an equal opportunity suicide tank then wouldn't that be a better story for the NYT?
8
Yes all lives matter. Yet it doesn't change the fact that racism is alive and well in the US. It is also a fact that people of color make up about 30 percent of the US population, they account for 60 percent of those imprisoned and white police officers are over-represented in the majority of US cities. It is insulting to other humans to imply this is 'race baiting with a feminist twist.'
4
I'm almost 70 years old and I've never heard of anyone
being pulled over for not signaling..... for no tail lights or brake lights operating..
yes.
Am I missing something?
being pulled over for not signaling..... for no tail lights or brake lights operating..
yes.
Am I missing something?
246
Yes you are. This is a very old police tactic used when the police want to single someone out for an "attitude adjustment." Follow someone long enough and you can be sure that you'll eventually discover some minor equipment or traffic infraction that will provide the excuse for a stop. Once you've got them stopped then provoke them verbally and physically until you get a reaction. Then you have an excuse to arrest them. Once you have them in jail and out of sight of the public you can do anything you want to them.
46
As a defense attorney I can tell you this is a common practice. Here in the state of Idaho, you have to signal for 5 seconds on a controlled access highway before you change lanes. This has been the basis for several stops, one in which my client was detained for over an hour while his car was torn apart and searched for drugs. Of course he was Mexican. No drugs were found, but in order to justify their actions, the police charged him with a misdemeanor offense nonetheless. The Constitution is a casualty of the drug war. Those of us who have been on the front lines recognize this reality and unfortunately until it happens to those with a lighter complexion in our society, we tend to turn a blind eye towards these type of abuses.
327
Here in Pasco, Washington a high speed police chase after a person who failed to signal a right turn properly resulted in the death of an innocent motorist. That made five people who were killed as a result of police action in less than a year in a town of 68,000.
21
I am a retired white professor of speech and debate at Prairie View A&M.
A video by a passerby who pulled over recoreded her saying, "You slamed my head to the ground." She repeated the sentence.
She was incarcerated and left unattended for a few days without anyone knowing about it other than the PV Police. They say they left her alone for a few days. (I wonder if they even fed her.)
If you have a concussion, it can be excrucinatingly painful.
Sandra Bland, surely experienced it, and surely recieved negligence of medicat service, since they left her alone with the injured head.
If she indeed commited suicide, it was caused by the excruciating pain and the neglect to hospitalize her for the head injury. They left her alone. At least call a doctor!
It all adds up: negligent homicide, caused by uncontorlled temperment,
A video by a passerby who pulled over recoreded her saying, "You slamed my head to the ground." She repeated the sentence.
She was incarcerated and left unattended for a few days without anyone knowing about it other than the PV Police. They say they left her alone for a few days. (I wonder if they even fed her.)
If you have a concussion, it can be excrucinatingly painful.
Sandra Bland, surely experienced it, and surely recieved negligence of medicat service, since they left her alone with the injured head.
If she indeed commited suicide, it was caused by the excruciating pain and the neglect to hospitalize her for the head injury. They left her alone. At least call a doctor!
It all adds up: negligent homicide, caused by uncontorlled temperment,
34
Uncontrolled tempers seems to be an epidemic in US police departments and they not only have guns but also military weaponry.
2
Before we accuse the others of being the racists we have to verify whether we act as the racists personally.
The question is if two Latino or Caucasian women were found dead in a prison cell whether Mr. Blow would write a column about them.
The mathematics are very simple. The same principles are valid EVERY time. We don’t get to choose when we are going to use them and when not.
The prerequisite for Dr. King dream to materialize that one day his daughters are not judged per a color of their skin is that we stop judging ourselves per a color of our skin.
As long as our government divides us into the Caucasians, Latinos and the African Americans we will not be the Americans.
What does it mean to portray self as a Caucasian or an African American?
That we like our keen more than the others.
While that might be true due to our human nature, our government should not enhance such a kind of behavior with the official policies.
Every time the government asks us to classify per our race it teaches us that we are not the same.
No government should act in such a way.
The good government teaches the young generations that the success in life depends on the principles they implement, their character and work ethic and that a skin color is completely irrelevant…
At least, that’s what the Holly Books are teaching us.
Obviously, our government and God are not on the same page.
I am supportive of separation of government and religions but not of government and faith.
The question is if two Latino or Caucasian women were found dead in a prison cell whether Mr. Blow would write a column about them.
The mathematics are very simple. The same principles are valid EVERY time. We don’t get to choose when we are going to use them and when not.
The prerequisite for Dr. King dream to materialize that one day his daughters are not judged per a color of their skin is that we stop judging ourselves per a color of our skin.
As long as our government divides us into the Caucasians, Latinos and the African Americans we will not be the Americans.
What does it mean to portray self as a Caucasian or an African American?
That we like our keen more than the others.
While that might be true due to our human nature, our government should not enhance such a kind of behavior with the official policies.
Every time the government asks us to classify per our race it teaches us that we are not the same.
No government should act in such a way.
The good government teaches the young generations that the success in life depends on the principles they implement, their character and work ethic and that a skin color is completely irrelevant…
At least, that’s what the Holly Books are teaching us.
Obviously, our government and God are not on the same page.
I am supportive of separation of government and religions but not of government and faith.
2
Thank you for this,Charles Blow.
12
"Phantom Lynching Syndrome"
Err, what?
Did Mr. Blow read that on a protest sign?
Err, what?
Did Mr. Blow read that on a protest sign?
12
One more thing about this. There are lots of traffic violations that CAN be serious in certain situations, but often are not - not quite coming to a full stop at a stop sign is another. Reasonable cops will enforce them when they present a danger and otherwise will ignore them. The problem is that the police can decide to enforce those laws whenever they care to and it provides an opportunity for them to stop almost any car they want to for whatever reasons if the officer is so inclined.
A neighbor's house was broken into a couple of years ago. One of my sons happened to be here and stood in our front yard staring at the 'perps' while he called the police. Then he called the neighbor, who was at work. The neighbor got home first and my son walked into the house with him, took one sniff of the air and told him to put his weed away somewhere. The neighbor didn't do that and when the police arrived they saw the obvious 'can,' asked him what was in it and then made him flush the contents. They didn't do anything else about it.
I asked my son about it later and he told me that if he'd put it away in a closet or something they wouldn't even have bothered with that, and added "they don't enforce marijuana laws against white people in this county." And this is, by the way, a majority African-American county.
Another example: I was pulled over once for going through a changing light a bit late. The cop took a look in the car, saw me, and walked away. Draw your own conclusions.
A neighbor's house was broken into a couple of years ago. One of my sons happened to be here and stood in our front yard staring at the 'perps' while he called the police. Then he called the neighbor, who was at work. The neighbor got home first and my son walked into the house with him, took one sniff of the air and told him to put his weed away somewhere. The neighbor didn't do that and when the police arrived they saw the obvious 'can,' asked him what was in it and then made him flush the contents. They didn't do anything else about it.
I asked my son about it later and he told me that if he'd put it away in a closet or something they wouldn't even have bothered with that, and added "they don't enforce marijuana laws against white people in this county." And this is, by the way, a majority African-American county.
Another example: I was pulled over once for going through a changing light a bit late. The cop took a look in the car, saw me, and walked away. Draw your own conclusions.
25
Rich, I've seen plenty of black people smoking pot on the sidewalk in Atlanta. If they jailed everyone that smoked pot in Atlanta in just one day, they'd have to use the Georgia Dome, the Phillips Center, Turner Field and Atlanta Motor Speedway to hold them all.
If white people seem to hold an advantage in these situations, it's because you can be certain they'll hire a lawyer who will render the minor charge worthless to persue.
If white people seem to hold an advantage in these situations, it's because you can be certain they'll hire a lawyer who will render the minor charge worthless to persue.
"I was pulled over once for going through a changing light a bit late. The cop took a look in the car, saw me, and walked away. Draw your own conclusions."
My conclusion is that the cop wanted to know if you were drunk or on drugs, and seeing you weren't, let you go.
My reason is that a similar thing has happened to me, and I am not white.
My conclusion is that the cop wanted to know if you were drunk or on drugs, and seeing you weren't, let you go.
My reason is that a similar thing has happened to me, and I am not white.
1
It’s clear that you’ve had something bottled up, but I don’t think it’s concern about traffic enforcement. Read some background on the Waller case and you’ll see that the authorities have already admitted to violations of protocol by both the arresting officer and the jail administration. Read further and you’ll see that Waller County has long been a hotbed of animus against blacks. Was the point of your rant to divert attention from these facts?
21
Mr. Blow, you state that "These black women’s live must matter enough for there to be full investigations of the events surrounding their deaths to assure their families and the public that no “foul play” was involved." I would hope a full investigation would be warranted whenever ANY death, regardless of race, sex or religion, occurred while a person was in prison or police custody.
The deaths of Sandra nor Kindra should not matter less, they should matter equally.
The deaths of Sandra nor Kindra should not matter less, they should matter equally.
137
I think Mr Blow would agree with you. The fact is that deaths like this are seldom investigated.
1
How many white women have "committed suicide" under similar circumstances?
1
That anyone would be thrown in jail because they failed to use a turn signal is outrageous! That the young woman in question was a professional black woman about to start her new life makes it a significant example of police brutality. The arresting officer should be disciplined. If Sandra Bland did not commit suicide, a vigorous murder investigation must be initiated.
126
The mentality of America's police forces, in the main, is that you must OBEY, right now, no questions asked. If not, you are in for escalating confrontation that can, in seconds, lead to arrest on felony charges (often later dropped), pepper spray in your face or death by shooting. This is not a joke. This is not limited to people of color, though our underlying social assumptions and the time and location of a traffic stop play a critical role in increasing the chance of violence against citizens.
Some of these problems have been bought on by the continual effort to professionalize police work. They are carefully instructed about how to conduct a traffic stop: body sideways to the driver (smaller target), hand on the pistol, ever at the ready. While traffic stops are dangerous, teaching that everyone, at any moment, can turn to violence makes police officers wary of every single encounter with the public, as if no one can be trusted for two seconds. Trying to do something right (teach preparation and caution), the leadership has engendered a total readiness to use violence.
Once violence is applied, recent video recordings have shown that the person becomes, in the minds of officers, a "perp", someone not worthy of any respect or care. In two incidents of violence in recent months, the officers handcuffed dying suspects and turned their faces down into the dirt where breathing would be difficult or impossible. Without video, we would not know what goes on.
Some of these problems have been bought on by the continual effort to professionalize police work. They are carefully instructed about how to conduct a traffic stop: body sideways to the driver (smaller target), hand on the pistol, ever at the ready. While traffic stops are dangerous, teaching that everyone, at any moment, can turn to violence makes police officers wary of every single encounter with the public, as if no one can be trusted for two seconds. Trying to do something right (teach preparation and caution), the leadership has engendered a total readiness to use violence.
Once violence is applied, recent video recordings have shown that the person becomes, in the minds of officers, a "perp", someone not worthy of any respect or care. In two incidents of violence in recent months, the officers handcuffed dying suspects and turned their faces down into the dirt where breathing would be difficult or impossible. Without video, we would not know what goes on.
90
Once you are stopped by police, from that point on everything should be "yes sir" or "no sir" calmly, no matter how angry you are or no matter how degraded you feel. Your life may depend on it. Not saying it is right, and I believe most policemen are good, but still you may run into the one that is not.
3
The point is the training is not sufficient for the job. We are running this country on the cheap. These kinds of things are the result.
9
I have to say, my personal (very limited) experience of encounters with police officers supports this commentator -- I'm white, upper middle class and middle-aged -- but even in my privileged situation, it has been clear that what the police require is immediate evidence of submissiveness. A citizen should be able to calmly ask for an explanation, but the sad truth is that the police have arbitrary power, and they will use it to punish you if you do so. I am quite certain that the situation is much worse for people of other races, social classes, and also for young people.
203
It is heartening to read a careful, measured bit of writing again from Mr. Blow.
I've been following the Sandra Bland case closely. I am from Houston and drive through Waller County and past Prairie View A+M often. The slow release of information by the police is terrible helping to fuel the rampant pessimistic speculation of what happened.
We need to continue to shine a light on thuggish police tactics. Here is an (equally) plausible scenario:
-Sandra Bland changes lanes without signal and gets pulled over. I am white and have gotten pulled over driving between Houston and Austin probably 6 times in my life. Driving while white.
-Sandra Bland argues with trooper and he asks her to get out of the car--Has happened to me before I learned to keep my mouth shut.
-Sandra Bland gets angry and kicks the trooper-at least that is what he is saying--even in Texas a trooper throwing a woman to the ground unprovoked? Come on, Yankees.
-Sandra Bland gets booked on 'resisting arrest'-a nightmare scenario.
-Sandra Bland will miss her starting day on her new job and maybe lose the job as well for being arrested.
-Sandra Bland has spoke of her battle with depression.
-Day 3 in jail, no bail in sight.
-Tragedy.
I am sure such an explanation will convince no one who wants to believe this horrible story fits a pre-determined narrative of good and evil. This is why I appreciate Mr. Blow's article. Ms. Bland's story is tragic enough.
I've been following the Sandra Bland case closely. I am from Houston and drive through Waller County and past Prairie View A+M often. The slow release of information by the police is terrible helping to fuel the rampant pessimistic speculation of what happened.
We need to continue to shine a light on thuggish police tactics. Here is an (equally) plausible scenario:
-Sandra Bland changes lanes without signal and gets pulled over. I am white and have gotten pulled over driving between Houston and Austin probably 6 times in my life. Driving while white.
-Sandra Bland argues with trooper and he asks her to get out of the car--Has happened to me before I learned to keep my mouth shut.
-Sandra Bland gets angry and kicks the trooper-at least that is what he is saying--even in Texas a trooper throwing a woman to the ground unprovoked? Come on, Yankees.
-Sandra Bland gets booked on 'resisting arrest'-a nightmare scenario.
-Sandra Bland will miss her starting day on her new job and maybe lose the job as well for being arrested.
-Sandra Bland has spoke of her battle with depression.
-Day 3 in jail, no bail in sight.
-Tragedy.
I am sure such an explanation will convince no one who wants to believe this horrible story fits a pre-determined narrative of good and evil. This is why I appreciate Mr. Blow's article. Ms. Bland's story is tragic enough.
20
This story was wrong from the beginning. The woman was not speeding, endangered no one, and should not have been stopped. These law enforcement people have too little to do, so they create busy work. Their busy work just took a life. Law enforcement is out of control, throwing men and women to the ground, bloodying them, bruising not only their bodies but their psyches. So whether Sandra Bland was murdered or took her own life, she was put in peril by those tasked to protect her and every one of us.
2
Your scenario is possible -- but it is at least equally plausible that the officers threw her to the ground and then were horrified when she died of a blood clot they caused, and so they staged a suicide in an attempt to cover up their crime. We'll have to wait to find out what the truth is.
And I saw the cell phone video of the officer throwing the 14 year old in the bikini to the ground -- in full public view. So I don't find it hard to believe that an officer would be guilty of an unprovoked physical attack when there was no one around to see him do it -- that does't mean the officer did it, but it does mean that I don't believe it to be implausible that it could have happened.
And I saw the cell phone video of the officer throwing the 14 year old in the bikini to the ground -- in full public view. So I don't find it hard to believe that an officer would be guilty of an unprovoked physical attack when there was no one around to see him do it -- that does't mean the officer did it, but it does mean that I don't believe it to be implausible that it could have happened.
Black lives only seem to matter if they are ended by whites. Blacks murdered by blacks are a commonplace in our society of little interest to black commentators because they aren't much use in shaking down whites. Thus obvious nonwhites like George Zimmerman get transmuted into whites for the purpose of inducing white guilt.
28
When a murder is carried out by police officers acting in their official capacity, it is a government action that is in theory occurring with the consent of the majority of the people. And more frequently than not, the organizations given the duty to investigate those murders and try and punish those responsible do everything they can to protect the guilty and malign the victim.
When a murder is carried out by, say, a street criminal, it is not occurring with the consent of the majority. Those same institutions with the sworn duty to do something about it attempt to find, arrest, prosecute, and jail those responsible.
That's a critical difference.
When a murder is carried out by, say, a street criminal, it is not occurring with the consent of the majority. Those same institutions with the sworn duty to do something about it attempt to find, arrest, prosecute, and jail those responsible.
That's a critical difference.
31
What is lost in this narrative that if we really cared we'd be dealing with the black murder rate is that frequently that the whites who kill blacks are let off. They aren't considered "criminals" but rather upstanding citizens who have every right to fear those viscious black people.
Crimes committed by blacks against other blacks might seem to be of "little interest to commentators" because they are treated as they should be AS CRIMINALS. Also over 90% of all crimes that occur are committed by people who know each other and over 85% are committed by people of the same cultural, ethnic, racial groups. Whether we approve of the causes or not, the causes are known and they are being worked on every single day by blacks all over this country, whether you are aware of this or not.
That you consider when a white "law-abiding citizen" kills an unarmed black person and blacks want justice for it "shaking down whites" speaks volumes about the relative value you place on black lives.
So instead of addressing the fact that a black professional woman with no criminal record dies in police custory for failure to turn on her turn signal you bring up criminals.
Should Italians have to solve the problem of the Mafia before they are entitled to fair treatment under the law? And since in our country we just consider Italians to be white, should YOU as a white person demand an end to the Mafia?
Crimes committed by blacks against other blacks might seem to be of "little interest to commentators" because they are treated as they should be AS CRIMINALS. Also over 90% of all crimes that occur are committed by people who know each other and over 85% are committed by people of the same cultural, ethnic, racial groups. Whether we approve of the causes or not, the causes are known and they are being worked on every single day by blacks all over this country, whether you are aware of this or not.
That you consider when a white "law-abiding citizen" kills an unarmed black person and blacks want justice for it "shaking down whites" speaks volumes about the relative value you place on black lives.
So instead of addressing the fact that a black professional woman with no criminal record dies in police custory for failure to turn on her turn signal you bring up criminals.
Should Italians have to solve the problem of the Mafia before they are entitled to fair treatment under the law? And since in our country we just consider Italians to be white, should YOU as a white person demand an end to the Mafia?
<SIGH> The "black-on-black" redirect is old, tired, and needs a rest. It's not related to issues related to police misconduct which may be what happened in these instances and should be investigated for the safety of all of us.
If a black civilian kills another civilian, black or not, there is usually an attempt to find the individual, arrest them, jail, indict, try, convict, and jail them. A simple, logical, and predictable series of events.
If a police officer kills a civilian, especially a minority civilian, the officer will be placed on administrative leave during an investigation that may lead to a charge, trial, but rarely an indictment and even more rarely, a conviction and a prison sentence. That is the normal sequence of events when a police officer kills a minority. That is true even when there is video of misconduct.
If a black civilian kills another civilian, black or not, there is usually an attempt to find the individual, arrest them, jail, indict, try, convict, and jail them. A simple, logical, and predictable series of events.
If a police officer kills a civilian, especially a minority civilian, the officer will be placed on administrative leave during an investigation that may lead to a charge, trial, but rarely an indictment and even more rarely, a conviction and a prison sentence. That is the normal sequence of events when a police officer kills a minority. That is true even when there is video of misconduct.
4
I will reserve judgment for when the investigation is complete. While I admire Mr. Blow's tenacity in making sure readers are well-informed about suspicious black deaths while in police custody, what he poses here is a rather elaborate cover up by two separate police departments, in separate states, which are both Southern. Some of the commentators have suggested that Sandra Bland's was suffering from admitted depression. Perhaps the arrest was the straw that broke the camel's back. Women are very skilled at hiding depression and suicidal thoughts. Especially black women, because the black community in general has conflicting feelings about mental health problems and treatment. Also, as professional women it may be harder to seek treatment because we fear damaging our careers given how hard we've worked to attain a certain level of success.
Regardless of whatever, I feel sorry for the loss of these women's lives in their prime and their families left behind to sort out the pieces of what really happened to their loved ones.
I noticed not so many people seem to care about the younger woman who was caught stealing a cell phone. I honestly find her death by suicide much harder to believe Bland's death. 18 years old and she stole a phone, which may have gotten her a few months in county jail even with the most draconian judge doing the sentencing.
Regardless of whatever, I feel sorry for the loss of these women's lives in their prime and their families left behind to sort out the pieces of what really happened to their loved ones.
I noticed not so many people seem to care about the younger woman who was caught stealing a cell phone. I honestly find her death by suicide much harder to believe Bland's death. 18 years old and she stole a phone, which may have gotten her a few months in county jail even with the most draconian judge doing the sentencing.
72
If the arrest of Bland was unnecessary and it broke the camel's back, aren't the people who took the unnecessary action responsible for the consequences of their action -- if the arrest was unnecessary and the result of escalation, and the target happened to be more vulnerable to more serious damage from it, I don't see the police as not culpable.
This comment also doesn't mention the possibility of a head injury from police conduct during the arrest -- I thought there was an issue around Bland's head having been slammed into the pavement -- so if we are going to speculate about a possible contributing factor of depression, why not also include a possible contributing factor of a head injury?
This comment also doesn't mention the possibility of a head injury from police conduct during the arrest -- I thought there was an issue around Bland's head having been slammed into the pavement -- so if we are going to speculate about a possible contributing factor of depression, why not also include a possible contributing factor of a head injury?
53
Do you know that police in NY make over $90,000 a year after five years? And yes, both deaths are horrendous and totally not understandable.
Obviously, these deaths are sad and unfortunate. And on the surface it sounds totally out of whack to jail people for minor offenses.
However, although CB skips quickly past this, Sandra wasn't arrested for failing to signal, she was arrested for assault. Now, I don't know the details, and CB doesn't present any. Kindra was arrested for stealing a cell phone from another individual on the street -- apparently not shop lifting.
Both these cases should be investigated. It seems odd that Sandra was in jail for three days and no one in her family could arrange for bail.
But let's be fair. Why would the police decide to murder Kindra an hour after she was put in jail? Are the reports of Sandra being depressed accurate? Instead of innuendo, why not wait for the results of the investigation? The FBI is on Sandra's case and I'm sure that Kindra's death will be thoroughly investigated.
At the same time, this is just junk journalism. Huffington Post -- I can see that. A news story in the Times, ok. But an opinion column insinuating that these deaths were the result of something sinister is simply out of bounds --- unless you've got some serious information. The fact her family doubts she would commit suicide is interesting information but certainly not anything to base a column on.
And for all the South haters who comment here -- I have two words for you: Rikers Island.
However, although CB skips quickly past this, Sandra wasn't arrested for failing to signal, she was arrested for assault. Now, I don't know the details, and CB doesn't present any. Kindra was arrested for stealing a cell phone from another individual on the street -- apparently not shop lifting.
Both these cases should be investigated. It seems odd that Sandra was in jail for three days and no one in her family could arrange for bail.
But let's be fair. Why would the police decide to murder Kindra an hour after she was put in jail? Are the reports of Sandra being depressed accurate? Instead of innuendo, why not wait for the results of the investigation? The FBI is on Sandra's case and I'm sure that Kindra's death will be thoroughly investigated.
At the same time, this is just junk journalism. Huffington Post -- I can see that. A news story in the Times, ok. But an opinion column insinuating that these deaths were the result of something sinister is simply out of bounds --- unless you've got some serious information. The fact her family doubts she would commit suicide is interesting information but certainly not anything to base a column on.
And for all the South haters who comment here -- I have two words for you: Rikers Island.
24
Your post assumes that the cops are telling the truth....
6
Blow does not "skip quickly past" the reason for Ms. Bland's arrest. He highlights it by including a quote from a NYT article. Too many critical commenters are overlooking the entire context of this confrontation. There is a well-documented pattern of police behavior in this country which involves a different approach to handling minor traffic infractions by racial minorities, captured by the phrase, "stopped for driving while black." It is quite possible that the officer in this case behaved properly, but the suspicion to the contrary stems from a history of troubled relations between officers and African Americans. Until police departments around the country can demonstrate color blindness in their enforcement of the law, they will encounter skepticism, quite unjustified in individual cases. It is always the case that the majority, who perform their jobs responsibly, pay a price in public relations for the actions of an irresponsible minority, especially if that minority is large enough to make headlines.
3
I'd assume then, that you wouldn't mind a thorough investigation by independent professionals to prove that you are right and Mr Blow is wrong.
3
Dear Charles,
Have you forgotten about many road rage incidents when one driver rudely cut off another driver without giving a turn signal, so the other driver got irritated, chased him down and retaliated by shooting a victim?
It’s wasn’t just a turning signal. It’s never about the turning signals. It’s about our lives, our perceived security, our feeling of our personal space being invaded and the people being afraid of losing their lives.
So, if you are in a hurry and really don’t have enough time to give a turning signal, don’t change a lane at all.
You might end up in a traffic accident and get several people killed.
It’s never about a turning signal.
About forty thousand Americans die every year in the traffic accidents…
Have you forgotten about many road rage incidents when one driver rudely cut off another driver without giving a turn signal, so the other driver got irritated, chased him down and retaliated by shooting a victim?
It’s wasn’t just a turning signal. It’s never about the turning signals. It’s about our lives, our perceived security, our feeling of our personal space being invaded and the people being afraid of losing their lives.
So, if you are in a hurry and really don’t have enough time to give a turning signal, don’t change a lane at all.
You might end up in a traffic accident and get several people killed.
It’s never about a turning signal.
About forty thousand Americans die every year in the traffic accidents…
9
Amazing to me, first, that Blow would make such irresponsible assertions about the circumstances surrounding these women's deaths without a shred of evidence and second, that so many readers would take them as fact based on their own preconceptions and prejudices. And no, Bland was not arrested for failing to signal - she was arrested for resisting the officers, conduct which is the common thread in one way and another of many of these highly publicized tragedies, and sadly is only encouraged by inflammatory pieces like Blow's.
20
Good gravy, read the piece. Blow doesn't make any assertions at all, much less irresponsible ones. He's asking for an investigation. Their deaths, whatever the cause of their incarceration, are odd, no? Even the fact of Ms. Bland's "resisting" the officer seems strange to me. The times I've been stopped, which are few, the officer tells me what he thinks I did, I reply, he either writes me a ticket or issues a warning. I stay in the car. Not much chance of "assaulting" there. Why would an apparently intelligent, unarmed woman attack a cop? Seems worth looking into.
22
It was taped on a cell phone, and the facts are negligence of concussion -- negligent homicide.
1
You seem to assume that police do not fabricate charges of resisting arrest in order to justify, say, having slammed a person to the ground, head-first.
1
I must echo the comment of J posted below. Why was she arrested? Because for too many law enforcement personnel, resistance is equated with assault. So when you have a young woman, many many pounds lighter and inches shorter than the officer who is confronting her, trying to physically restrain her and she resists by pushing, slapping at, kicking, perhaps cursing, in the cop's mind he was the one assaulted. And this for an infraction so minor, the fine wouldn't buy enough gas fill your tank.
Police, while they are frequently verbally abused, should be able to ignore it in most situations. It comes with the job. The old childhood response about sticks, stones and bones to taunts should be part of law enforcement's DNA. Unfortunately, it too often is not.
Police, while they are frequently verbally abused, should be able to ignore it in most situations. It comes with the job. The old childhood response about sticks, stones and bones to taunts should be part of law enforcement's DNA. Unfortunately, it too often is not.
28
I don't know what happened in this case either . But note that you shifted in your comment from "pushing, slapping at, kicking, perhaps cursing" to "police should be able to ignore verbal abuse" and "sticks and stones and taunts.' Pushing, slapping, and kicking is not verbal abuse or taunting.
Warbler, I guess it would depend on who got physical first, wouldn't it? If the order of events were she became verbally resistant and the officer then grabbed and threatened her with arrest -all for an unsignalled lane change, remember- is physical resistance then assault. A woman against an armed man larger than she is is unlikely to cause any significant physical damage to someone in body armor with her hands and feet.
Going back to my question for a moment. Why couldn't the officer just let the lady rant until she quieted down, then present her the traffic citation. Did he precipitate the events by ordering her out of the car, or possibly opening the door and reaching in to pull her out? Again, we don't know. But we do know that a traffic violation that goes unnoticed, ignored by officers when seen, probably more often than not, and resulted in no injuries...except one delayed, very tragic and fatal injury, was escalated out of control. And it always seems the instigator is the victim and the innocent party is the one in uniform.
Law officers must switch between being public servants on one hand and a warrior mindset on the other. A public servant would have found calm way to bring this to a peaceful, undramatic conclusion. The challenge for officers is to know when to use which. Was the officer justified, or was he culpable?
Going back to my question for a moment. Why couldn't the officer just let the lady rant until she quieted down, then present her the traffic citation. Did he precipitate the events by ordering her out of the car, or possibly opening the door and reaching in to pull her out? Again, we don't know. But we do know that a traffic violation that goes unnoticed, ignored by officers when seen, probably more often than not, and resulted in no injuries...except one delayed, very tragic and fatal injury, was escalated out of control. And it always seems the instigator is the victim and the innocent party is the one in uniform.
Law officers must switch between being public servants on one hand and a warrior mindset on the other. A public servant would have found calm way to bring this to a peaceful, undramatic conclusion. The challenge for officers is to know when to use which. Was the officer justified, or was he culpable?
Charles Blow leaves readers the impression that Sandra Bland was arrested for failing to signal a lane change. However, she was arrested for assaulting the state trooper, not for a traffic violation. The Department of Public Safety says the trooper planned to give her a warning ticket, but she became argumentative and uncooperative. She allegedly kicked him after he ordered her out of the car and then resisted arrest. There are eye witnesses. Bland also had trouble with traffic stops in her home state of Illinois. According to the Chicago Tribute, Bland pleaded guilty to misdemeanor marijuana possession in 2010. Her driver’s license had been suspended three times prior to last year, and she was on court supervision in Illinois. Her Illinois driver's license was set to be suspended a fourth time on July 31. However, she received no injuries during the arrest and the state trooper is not implicated in her death, which occur three days after the arrest.
24
Okay, but here's the issue: better policing would not have escalated the situation by ordering her out of the car, even if she was rude. And "rude" is in the eyes of the beholder: women who do not automatically defer to male authority, especially black women, often get a disproportionate reaction that they are being rude and hostile and must be controlled. The cop could have given her a warning about using her signal and walked away. Instead he ordered her out of the car and took up the tension and risk by a factor of ten.
When police think of themselves as guardians and public servants, they act one way toward "civilians." When they think of themselves as the ruling authority to whom automatic deference is owed, they act another way. I know which way I think is most appropriate, as a citizen and taxpayer. And there are city police departments that train and train and train their forces to interact with the public as "guardians" -- Charleston being one, thanks to Mayor Joseph Riley.
When police think of themselves as guardians and public servants, they act one way toward "civilians." When they think of themselves as the ruling authority to whom automatic deference is owed, they act another way. I know which way I think is most appropriate, as a citizen and taxpayer. And there are city police departments that train and train and train their forces to interact with the public as "guardians" -- Charleston being one, thanks to Mayor Joseph Riley.
4
Why was she ordered "out of her car" for a ticket for which he was going to "give her a warning?"
2
I read somewhere that her sister stated that she did receive injuries but received no medical attention even after three days. Do you have a source saying that she had no injuries? That would be helpful.
2
These recurring stories are genuinely frightening because they show a criminal mentality among the perp police officers, white and black. We're upper middle class white people who live in a nice neighborhood, behave like our peers and can afford good lawyers. Yet, criminals are criminals in blue jeans or blue uniforms and that strikes fear in us, as well.
18
Do we live in the same universe? Are we driving on the same interstates?
Have you ever experienced the reckless drivers suddenly cutting you off by changing the lanes without giving a turn signal?
Haven’t you ever wished that the police ticketed those irresponsible and selfish individuals who might kill several people by creating a tragic car pileup on the hectic interstates.
Of course we are supposed to get a traffic ticket for driving irresponsibly and endangering everybody around us.
The problem is usually created by the irritated drivers insulting the police officers and ignoring the civil authorities.
All of the above has nothing to do with any race. Such an ignorant behavior crosses the racial lines.
Do you remember one of the worst cases of the individuals ignoring the civil authorities?
It happened more than 150 years ago when the Southern white politicians ignored the civil authorities and launched a bloody civil war that killed more than 500,000 soldiers on both sides.
Every time we disrespect the civil authorities we dismantle our western civilization and create the havoc situation.
The proper avenue to prove that some police officers acted recklessly and irresponsibly is not a street but a courtroom.
Let’s teach the young generations to respect and love our police officers to make their jobs easier.
If you know how to do the police job better and more politely, why haven’t you already joined our police force?
Don’t be a columnist but an officer.
Have you ever experienced the reckless drivers suddenly cutting you off by changing the lanes without giving a turn signal?
Haven’t you ever wished that the police ticketed those irresponsible and selfish individuals who might kill several people by creating a tragic car pileup on the hectic interstates.
Of course we are supposed to get a traffic ticket for driving irresponsibly and endangering everybody around us.
The problem is usually created by the irritated drivers insulting the police officers and ignoring the civil authorities.
All of the above has nothing to do with any race. Such an ignorant behavior crosses the racial lines.
Do you remember one of the worst cases of the individuals ignoring the civil authorities?
It happened more than 150 years ago when the Southern white politicians ignored the civil authorities and launched a bloody civil war that killed more than 500,000 soldiers on both sides.
Every time we disrespect the civil authorities we dismantle our western civilization and create the havoc situation.
The proper avenue to prove that some police officers acted recklessly and irresponsibly is not a street but a courtroom.
Let’s teach the young generations to respect and love our police officers to make their jobs easier.
If you know how to do the police job better and more politely, why haven’t you already joined our police force?
Don’t be a columnist but an officer.
10
The police are not saints nor above the law. Who watches the watchmen?
Your attitude is pure tyranny. Your attitude is what eats away at our ideals.
Your attitude is pure tyranny. Your attitude is what eats away at our ideals.
20
You are kidding, right? You focus on the traffic violation, arguing it's probably just and ignore the fact that the woman supposedly hung herself. For a traffic violation. When she was about to start a good job in a familiar place? I have to assume that you are being purposely inflammatory. The alternatives to that are not pretty.
25
Video shows that Sandra Bland was arrested on a lightly travelled residential street, not a highway.
We will never know what happened. The sheriff who arrested her was fired from a previous position as chief of police for racism, so he simply will not be believed by many people.
Regardless, the penalty for failure to signal is a small fine, not death.
We will never know what happened. The sheriff who arrested her was fired from a previous position as chief of police for racism, so he simply will not be believed by many people.
Regardless, the penalty for failure to signal is a small fine, not death.
28
Millions of dollars are being paid in settlements on the back end of tragedy. Had this money been paid to officers in the first instance, a whole different sort of person would apply to join the force, and lives would be saved.
Police work is hard, often unpleasant, and sporadically dangerous. No one gets into it for the money most communities now pay, and many take a fraction of their perceived compensation in the form of power over 'civilians' exercised with impunity. If we want professionalism from cops, we must pay them as professionals so we can attract professionals to serve.
Police work is hard, often unpleasant, and sporadically dangerous. No one gets into it for the money most communities now pay, and many take a fraction of their perceived compensation in the form of power over 'civilians' exercised with impunity. If we want professionalism from cops, we must pay them as professionals so we can attract professionals to serve.
189
Perhaps the situation is different in Europe. But in the United States, for the most part, criminal justice is a well-paying field, as it should be given the risks. And not only do police officers make a comfortable living, they enjoy the benefits of a strong union, including a pension system that allows many to retire fairly comfortably after 20 or so years on the job. Low pay, I would argue, is not a contributing factor, at least not in US.
15
And what makes you think that this "whole different sort of person would apply" and make everything just perfect? Sounds to me like you're blaming Ms. Bland's alleged suicide on poor wages for cops. I am unable to connect your Tab A to your Tab B.
3
"If we want professionalism from cops, we must pay them as professionals so we can attract professionals to serve." Otherwise we get killers?
5
Pulled over for failing to signal a lane change? By that measure, I should have been pulled over and jailed a hundred times over in the Waltham jail.
I suspect, with no proof, of course, that the "assaulting an officer" charge was tacked on to justify jail time. Why else would a professor (or any professional) be jailed for a traffic "crime" that occurs a million times a day in every state of the nation.
And allegedly stealing a cellphone? Have we become a nation of "Les Miserables", with a zillion Javerts pursuing perpetrators of mysterious minior crimes to the ends of the earth?
I'm glad the overworked FBI is getting involved. It seems like every week they are pulled in more directions, but these incidents, if any should, deserve investigation and full pursuit of the law.
I suspect, with no proof, of course, that the "assaulting an officer" charge was tacked on to justify jail time. Why else would a professor (or any professional) be jailed for a traffic "crime" that occurs a million times a day in every state of the nation.
And allegedly stealing a cellphone? Have we become a nation of "Les Miserables", with a zillion Javerts pursuing perpetrators of mysterious minior crimes to the ends of the earth?
I'm glad the overworked FBI is getting involved. It seems like every week they are pulled in more directions, but these incidents, if any should, deserve investigation and full pursuit of the law.
611
You are so right. "assaulting an officer" has become the catch-all excuse in many of these cases.
And it doesn't mean actually assaulting an officer like one would think, the slightest flinch or turn of the body will often suffice.
And it doesn't mean actually assaulting an officer like one would think, the slightest flinch or turn of the body will often suffice.
16
The popular trend these days is to defy the police.
9
When drivers get pulled over for minor traffic infraction, it is usually because the police officers have been instructed at shift briefing to crack down on specific violations, such as changing lanes or making turns without signaling. Sometime the police issue warnings through the news media that they will be focusing on certain types of offenses during the upcoming days. The purpose is to make is to make drivers more likely to signal before making turns or changing lanes. The state trooper in the Sandra Bland case said he had intended to give her a warning ticket, but they she became argumentative and uncooperative. He alleges she kicked him after he ordered her out of the car. She was arrest for assault, not for a traffic violation.
2
From what I've read, most suicides in jails involve tearing up sheets. When prisoners are on suicide watch, they remove fabric that can be torn up. Modern jails have removed as many possible places to hang sheets from for suicide as possible -- modern cells don't have bars, they have walls and steel doors.
Maybe jail clothes and sheets should be made from a fabric substitute -- something that isn't strong enough to make a noose.
Maybe everyone in jail should receive psychotherapy. If they are detained they need psychotherapy because a) they're under severe stress b.) their being in jail probably means they have some major psychological problems. Jail is supposed to deter future crimes. Can't psychotherapy deter future criminal acts?
Maybe jail clothes and sheets should be made from a fabric substitute -- something that isn't strong enough to make a noose.
Maybe everyone in jail should receive psychotherapy. If they are detained they need psychotherapy because a) they're under severe stress b.) their being in jail probably means they have some major psychological problems. Jail is supposed to deter future crimes. Can't psychotherapy deter future criminal acts?
6
Maybe police should be trained to respond nonviolently, so that people don't go to jail for a minor traffic stop. Do you believe anyone who fails to use their turn signal should be jailed and given psycotherapy?
I was in a county jail, although I was never charged with a crime. I wasn't allowed a lawyer and didn't have a bail hearing. I met a woman there who was imprisoned because she failed to timely renew her auto registration. It took her husband a week to come up with the $400 minimum bail. She said the officer who ticketed her could have just ticketed her. Maybe it was her second ticket for late registration. She was a white woman whose husband was employed and she said she had no criminal record. She said they had financial problems because their daughter had cancer. We all shared a phone located in our main room and I heard she and her husband talking about trying to borrow the bail money. In that area most people made only minimum wage and lived paycheck to paycheck.
I don't think it would be a bad idea to have counselors talk to inmates.
I don't think it would be a bad idea to have counselors talk to inmates.
1
Why was she arrested in the first place -- for a traffic stop? Was this a case of driving while Black?
148
More than likely she decided to argue with the officer and refused the ticket. The time to argue a ticket is in court not with the officer issuing the ticket.
This has become a norm among certain people. refusing tickets, refusing to be hand cuffed while being arrested for an old warrant found during the stop, running or driving away while the officer checks for warrants. All it does is escalate the situation.
This has become a norm among certain people. refusing tickets, refusing to be hand cuffed while being arrested for an old warrant found during the stop, running or driving away while the officer checks for warrants. All it does is escalate the situation.
1
Charles Blow is aware that both the Texas Rangers and FBI are investigating Sandra Bland's death and that Kindra Chapman's death will also be investigated. The purpose of his column is to not to ensure the circumstances of their deaths are examined but to incite as much racial animosity as possible before the facts begin to emerge.
24
You and I both live in Texas - let's not be naive.
50
It seems to me that your comment is inciting racial animosity, not his column
21
It has also been reported, and partially caught on tape, that she argued with the officer, and that this is the real reason she was arrested, even thought it is not illegal to question or speak to a police officer. If she was so depressed, how did she have the wherewithal, energy, and anger to question him? And if it resulted in her arrest, one would think she would stave off her depressive feelings long enough to get justice.
42
Sandra Bland was arrested for physically assaulting the state trooper, not for being argumentative. She allegedly kicked him after he ordered her out of the car, and then resisted arrest. There are eyewitnesses. She was charged with "assault of a public servant." She allegedly hanged herself three days after the arrest.
9
An investigation by Texas Department of Public Safety found the following:
"In arresting Bland, the trooper "violated the department's procedures regarding traffic stops and the department's courtesy policy," state public safety officials said Friday without specifying what procedures the trooper, whose name has not been released, had violated."
and:
"Bland had been pulled over in Prairie View, Texas, and previously state public safety officials had said she became argumentative and uncooperative so she was arrested on a charge of assaulting a public servant.
"She had become combative on the side of the road," Waller County Sheriff Glenn Smith said."
Nowhere does it say "assault", which is a specific legal term. Argumentative, uncooperative and combative is not assault.
"In arresting Bland, the trooper "violated the department's procedures regarding traffic stops and the department's courtesy policy," state public safety officials said Friday without specifying what procedures the trooper, whose name has not been released, had violated."
and:
"Bland had been pulled over in Prairie View, Texas, and previously state public safety officials had said she became argumentative and uncooperative so she was arrested on a charge of assaulting a public servant.
"She had become combative on the side of the road," Waller County Sheriff Glenn Smith said."
Nowhere does it say "assault", which is a specific legal term. Argumentative, uncooperative and combative is not assault.
4
Could you point us to what these eyewitnesses have said, please, and where? I noticed you put "allegedly" before "kicked him" but not before "there are witnesses," so I'm taking this to be air-tight. Links please.
"Suicides or Something Sinister?" Maybe both. The arrest of Sandra was certainly something sinister. It's highly unlikely a white woman would have been pulled over, much less arrested, for a similar traffic "offense."
46
Actually, failure to signal tickets are a very popular fund raising category here in my suburban town. I know at least 20 white people who've been ticketed.
16
The reason it's such a popular fundraising ticket is that the charge is completely impossible to disprove. As in, using your turn signal before all lane changes does not guarantee that you will not be ticketed for failure to signal lane changes.
4
And well they should have been.
1
Couple of days ago a Black Lives Matter group made fools of themselves by sabotaging Bernie Sanders' speech.
I think that Mr. Blow, the New York Times and most of the commenters here have tied many young African-Americans to a political anchor and thrown them overboard. In your eagerness to get traction for a good cause you have created a festival of groupthink that many people now take for real.
Now Mr. Blow is creating the next meme. Looking from the other side of the world, Black Lives Matter is continuing the work of Occupy Wall Street in making Donald Trump look realistic.
I think that Mr. Blow, the New York Times and most of the commenters here have tied many young African-Americans to a political anchor and thrown them overboard. In your eagerness to get traction for a good cause you have created a festival of groupthink that many people now take for real.
Now Mr. Blow is creating the next meme. Looking from the other side of the world, Black Lives Matter is continuing the work of Occupy Wall Street in making Donald Trump look realistic.
15
I think one more thing should be noted about Ida Wells that relates to Ida Wells she put race interests above women's interests. She advocated with Frederick Douglass not to wait and insist that women and African-American males get listed on the 14th amendment, as opposed to the position of Elizabeth Stanton and Sojourner Truth.
I do not say her point is wrong, there were good reasons for it, but women did not get the vote for75 years and still do not have constitutionally recognized citizenship rights. And still, are expected to put their needs as women behind the needs of the African-American community as the whole and males in particular. So is this story any wonder?
I do not say her point is wrong, there were good reasons for it, but women did not get the vote for75 years and still do not have constitutionally recognized citizenship rights. And still, are expected to put their needs as women behind the needs of the African-American community as the whole and males in particular. So is this story any wonder?
8
Undoubtedly, the deaths of Sandra Bland and Kindra Chapman in Texas and Alabama jails were evidence of "Phantom Lynching Syndrome" not suicides of both young, able-bodied women, one 28, the other 18 years old. Both were found dead - asphixiated, death by "plastic bag". death by white sheet hanging - in their jail cells, and Sandra Bland was on her way to a new job at a Texas university. Sandra's and Kindra's black lives mattered. But where is the evidence that both young women were suicidal and killed themselves in jail? There is no simple explanation in either case. The Ida B. Wells Google Doodle image, celebrating a black female civil rights icon, was an amazing coicidence - that it appeared at the time the black women were found dead in Texas and Alabama jails, under "state protection". Under Southern State protection. Once again, foul play is suspected and surely underlies the issue of these twin "jail suicides". And yes, Charles Blow, it has fallen to you to take up the mantle and shine a light in the darkness of the sinned against black men and women alike.
45
In a Facebook video she posted, Sandra Bland complained of suffering from depression and PTSD. Charles Blow is well aware that the two deaths are being investigated and that his demand for full investigation is superfluous. It's just a tactic designed to create as much racial animosity as possible before the fact are determined. Both the Texas Rangers and the FBI are investigating Sandra Bland's death. The FBI is involved at the request of the Waller Country, Texas, district attorney.
8
I've seen the video Sandra Bland made before her death about this very issue: heavyhanded racist policing; the irony is heartbreaking. Policing in the United States in general is a potentially deadly circus. It's unnecessarily armed (in most locales policing does not require the presence of a firearm; just ask your local police chief), it's authoritarian (with power firmly rooted in the absolute power of the gun), and a lot of it is just plain stupid. It doesn't even make sense to even arrest people and handcuff them for minor offences. And we're not just talking about the repressive South; it happens in my own little white liberal stronghold town in New Hampshire. I wish more Americans could experience what policing is like elsewhere, in the other advanced nations, and then begin asking themselves: why can't we have that?
132
The reason that most Americans don't ask that question is because they have been brainwashed to think that they live in the greatest place on earth, and they (notice I did say most of them) are too critically challenged in the 'critical thinking' part of life to entertain the idea that that's not true.
45
Gerald you can have that. MOVE.
Reading the article and the comments here. It sounds like Ms. Bland was pulled over for a traffic infraction. Failure to signal usually means the driver cut someone off and created a disturbance in the traffic flow. Then Ms. Bland took a self entitled approach with the police officer, was belligerent, and was arrested. Black or white behavior matters. The vast majority of officers are just doing their job. They don't need crap from the drivers they pull over. We all know, based on our own experience on the road, they should be pulling over a lot more.
I don't really understand your reference to firearms. Statistically police officers in this country rarely if ever discharge their firearms outside the police range. In those countries you tout as having a superior approach to law enforcement. Guess what happens when officers confront someone with a gun. The police office and several others end up dead.
Reading the article and the comments here. It sounds like Ms. Bland was pulled over for a traffic infraction. Failure to signal usually means the driver cut someone off and created a disturbance in the traffic flow. Then Ms. Bland took a self entitled approach with the police officer, was belligerent, and was arrested. Black or white behavior matters. The vast majority of officers are just doing their job. They don't need crap from the drivers they pull over. We all know, based on our own experience on the road, they should be pulling over a lot more.
I don't really understand your reference to firearms. Statistically police officers in this country rarely if ever discharge their firearms outside the police range. In those countries you tout as having a superior approach to law enforcement. Guess what happens when officers confront someone with a gun. The police office and several others end up dead.
On what police do in other civilized countries - A while ago a reader wrote from England that a fictional police-detective series is showing on British TV. He said there had been more than 20 episodes aired without a single gun being shown!
1
Even IF these women did hang themselves, they should be considered as manslaughter by the police rather than suicide.
There is no excuse for putting someone in jail for failing to signal a lane change. Don't they know how to write a traffic ticket??
The police involved are responsible for these deaths.
There is no excuse for putting someone in jail for failing to signal a lane change. Don't they know how to write a traffic ticket??
The police involved are responsible for these deaths.
273
Sandra Bland wasn't arrest for failing to single a lane change. The Texas Department of Public Safety says the state trooper planned to give her a written warning, but she became uncooperative and argumentative. She allegedly kicked the officer after he ordered her out of the car. She was arrested for allegedly assaulting the state trooper.
15
No one goes to jail for a ticket. They go to jail after refusing to accept the ticket or assaulting the officer.
3
Ms. Bland was not arrested on the basis of an illegal lane change. But you already knew that.
4
W gets pulled over for failing to signal a lane change for heaven's sake. But if you are black and driving in Texas I guess it.s routine.
And the next day you are dead. For failing to signal a lane change [in Texas]
And the next day you are dead. For failing to signal a lane change [in Texas]
37
People do get pulled over for this, actually, and should. It's dangerous not to let the cars around you know what you're doing. But I don't believe for a minute that Sandra Bland hanged herself.
3
Do the autopsies include rape kits? Are the presumed suicides to hide something?
50
Land of the free.
Death penalty for failing to signal a turn/change of lane.
Why does the US incarcerate people for misdemeanors?
Three days? For what?
What did I miss here?
Death penalty for failing to signal a turn/change of lane.
Why does the US incarcerate people for misdemeanors?
Three days? For what?
What did I miss here?
95
Assaulting a police officer is not a misdemeanor.
1
Anyone, wanna buy a bridge?
Psychopaths exist in all professions. The percentage is small, but in certain cultures their nefarious deeds are overlooked. It's unfortunate, but "cop" culture, (cops vs everyone else) is especially prone. Even more so, when minorities are the victims!
Psychopaths exist in all professions. The percentage is small, but in certain cultures their nefarious deeds are overlooked. It's unfortunate, but "cop" culture, (cops vs everyone else) is especially prone. Even more so, when minorities are the victims!
32
Via The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies, and Serial Killers Can Teach Us About Success:
The number one job for psychopaths is CEO, followed by Lawyer. Number 7 is police officer.
I'm thinking that the percentage isn't really that small.,
The number one job for psychopaths is CEO, followed by Lawyer. Number 7 is police officer.
I'm thinking that the percentage isn't really that small.,
14
This is what really scares me. In the next couple of years dog willing we don't go to war we will be letting go of 40,000 military service men. Now I ask you how many servicemen become LEO's... too many, and then too many become oath keepers or members of CSPOA. And within those numbers they will fudge and not add names into the system NCIS or local data bases because they are so in love with the second amendment that they will knowingly not carry out their job. his is all in addition to their psychopathic tendencies.
We need a new verb for the suicide of Sandra and Kindra, as well as a new question: Who suicide them?
16
Yes indeed.
1
The news reported that Sandra Bland had posted about being depressed on social media. Several posting of "trying to just get thru the day". Why, Blow, would you leave out this very important piece of information? Come on NYT, you're better than this.
22
Always hope for a positive outcome. You are not very thoughtful.
Is it really acceptable to hold someone in jail for failing to signal a lane change or allegedly stealing a cell phone? Aren't there more effective and appropriate ways to assure response to these accusations regardless of ethnicity, gender or other personal characteristics?
165
JBR, do you honestly think Ms. Bland was taken to jail on the basis of the illegal lane change alone? No. You don't. Nor do you honestly think Michael Brown was killed for stealing a box of cigars.
Men in uniform are scary. They are meant to be. Some, as soldiers, were made to wear large, furry hats (busbies) to make them seem bigger and scarier. Some still wear hats that are eerily reminiscent of Nazi-era uniforms. Men in uniform often have an inflated sense of their own authority and importance. Servants of the public they are not.
The conditions in American jails and prisons are too often barbaric. It's time for a national move to clean out those stables.
The conditions in American jails and prisons are too often barbaric. It's time for a national move to clean out those stables.
60
Men in corporations also have institutionally-inflated egos.
9
Hello, Des Johnson.
Would not it be more sensible to clean up the home environments many populating our prison are raised and nurtured in?
Happy children mature into adults who have better things to do with their lives than sit in a jail or prison cell.
Would not it be more sensible to clean up the home environments many populating our prison are raised and nurtured in?
Happy children mature into adults who have better things to do with their lives than sit in a jail or prison cell.
These are appalling incidents but in my experience questioning anyone in a power position, particularly those with a badge and a gun, can cause problems. There are many people in these positions who do not know how to handle the power they are given and use it as an opportunity to belittle and control others. Unfortunately some are drawn to these professions precisely because they feel dis-empowered in their own lives, and play out their personal issues in a public forum.
25
Good point. Man in uniform with Guns are scary. Better be safe.
1
Sadly, Ms. Bland was suffering from depression and PTSD that she spoke about on a few videos she posted online.
Search: Sandy Speaks Archives - GotNews
Search: Sandy Speaks Archives - GotNews
14
I checked out the GotNews page and was a bit baffled by this question: "Why was she in Texas when she’s from Illinois?" Can you explain what that means?
I've suffered from depression my whole life. And I've been arrested. Never did attempt suicide, though; never even thought about it.
It would seem that the wrong attitude with the wrong police officer in Texas (and the wrong skin color) would end badly. I hope the FBI gives this the attention it deserves. I can't help but think of the thousands of similar stories that have not, and will not see the light of day.
50
Both deaths seem too odd to me and tpp oddly similar. Cops lie and lie a lot. All those unarmed people "reaching for their waistband" and all those people who "assaulted" a cop probably did neither. The fact that lying, violent cops are almost never punished is their biggest lesson: they can act with impunity. And they do.
200
How long will it be (probably today) before I begin receiving facebook or emai messages to support 'our' police? Seems so patriotic to pass these statements onto friends and associates...our police are there for us and we should all get behind them. Well, how do we keep smiling and encouraging each other about racial progress in America when we hear and read such terrible news under such suspicious circumstances of arrest and state suicides?
15
The unspoken dynamic in this column is the resilience of African-Americans in this experience in the teeth of every hostility and denial since its founding nigh on 400 years ago. America has never thrown out the welcoming, accepting blanket for non-white people. Courage and perseverance are the answers to systemic violence and degradation. The grievous case of Sandra Bland, in particular, presents a set of circumstances which defy every logic. She had everything to live for, to look forward to. Why would she, as alleged, assault a "peace officer," a felony, and forfeit a walk through the doorway of her cherished dreams? Cops in the North have insidious reputations in their interactions with black "suspects," but the South, with its history of suspicion and will to employ force as a first response to a black person's situation, carries a far heavier burden of proof that does not inspire confidence in anything like faith in justice or forbearance. That these two recent examples were women cut no ice with the hardened culture of law enforcement that presumes guilt, for the most minor offense against the code, rather than explanation and peaceful resolution. Cops obey their superiors, who, in their turn, are hired by their communities. Nothing happens in a vacuum.
25
Every time I see someone pulled over by the police I make an effort to see if the person is black. Why? I truly believe that inherent racism drives a lot of the police's actions.(I.e. seeing a black person driving an expensive car is suspicious)
To think she was pulled over for not signaling a lane change!! Every day I see way too many people texting while driving(ambulance driver!), using their phone and cutting across two lanes at high speed with zero signals. ALL white drivers.
These two "suicides" look very unusual to me. I hope they can uncover the truth.
It has to be scary to be black and as one reader pointed out, even more so in the south.
To think she was pulled over for not signaling a lane change!! Every day I see way too many people texting while driving(ambulance driver!), using their phone and cutting across two lanes at high speed with zero signals. ALL white drivers.
These two "suicides" look very unusual to me. I hope they can uncover the truth.
It has to be scary to be black and as one reader pointed out, even more so in the south.
121
"Every day I see way too many people texting while driving(ambulance driver!), using their phone and cutting across two lanes at high speed with zero signals."
Yes, YOU saw them. Why are you assuming a cop saw them and ignored them?
Yes, YOU saw them. Why are you assuming a cop saw them and ignored them?
1
This is a despicable example of innuendo and possible slander in service of an obsessive inflammatory "newsworthy" focus on any imaginable police misconduct. There is no evidence whatever of foul play in either incident at this point but that does not keep Mr. Blow from condemning the police and repeatedly implying that they must be guilty of murder. Police misconduct is a small component of the problems afflicting many black lives(but not commonly those of well published inflammatory media opinionators). A little more focus on the the most important elements in the problem might help promote better outcomes.
24
Let me guess...NRroad is white, correct?
22
"There is no evidence whatever of foul play"
Have you ever been incarcerated for changing lanes without signalling?
Have you ever known or heard of anyone who has been incarcerated for changing lanes without signalling?
Why doesn't the double standard of it happening to her and not to you (or anyone you know) not trouble you?
Have you ever been incarcerated for changing lanes without signalling?
Have you ever known or heard of anyone who has been incarcerated for changing lanes without signalling?
Why doesn't the double standard of it happening to her and not to you (or anyone you know) not trouble you?
18
Even after all the recent events involving the police all around the country, you still seem able to give them the benefit. Why was her head slammed against the ground? Did those big brave policemen feel threatened?
24
We have the ability, both legal and technical, to spy on everyone's home with drone cameras, public security cameras are ubiquitous, but what happens in police cellblocks is somehow rarely captured on film. What we need is more cameras and serious consequences for not maintaining them in good working order at all times.
84
I think that a lot of jails do have cameras but they don't always take pictures of cells because the idea is that inmates should have some privacy-- the cells usually have toilets right there.
3
"Failure to signal a lane change"-and she was asked to step out of her car? I was pulled over in Vermont for speeding and wasn'r asked to exit my auto-but I am white and it was Vermont.
196
Next time you get stopped get very belligerent with the cop and let us know how that works out.
13
Speaking disrespectfully while seated in a car is "belligerent?"
26
Next time you're profiled and harassed on a daily basis by the police, let's see how deferential and polite you are to the police.
The inability of people afforded a lifetime of white privilege to have no empathy for those in our society who are NOT given that privilege is astonishing.
The inability of people afforded a lifetime of white privilege to have no empathy for those in our society who are NOT given that privilege is astonishing.
25
The charge of assaulting a public servant is what stands out to me. My impression is that there is a style of policing that brooks no negative reaction to unfair policing and that to question an officer's behavior will lead to escalation in such circumstances, a sort of "I will see to it that you won't win" mentality, sometimes using provocation as a tactic (so whether there actually was a an assault of a public servant to me would not be dispositive). I have no idea whether Sandra Bland questioned the way she was treated during the initial encounter with police over the traffic issue, but the pattern of escalation seems all too familiar. When initially small events, like alleged traffic infractions, lead to death, there is something wrong with this picture. I think the burden should be on the police, under a concept analogous to the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur in tort law. These deaths make no sense to me without wrongdoing by police at some stage of the proceedings.
388
I agree completely. Unless she intended to martyr herself - which seems a stretch - it is virtually impossible to construct a narrative or timeline of these events in which police misconduct or at the very least overzealousness or rough handling likely motivated in part by the victim's skin color - does not play a role.
Could she have been severely depressed? It's possible, but the events in question would seem much more likely to have energized her to further activism. The fact that she apparently fought the police officer doesn't match the image of a person in apathetic, hopeless despair. Suggesting they caused such despair that she took her own life on the spot is quite a stretch. Or if THAT'S the case, what on earth did they do to her in jail?
Could she have been severely depressed? It's possible, but the events in question would seem much more likely to have energized her to further activism. The fact that she apparently fought the police officer doesn't match the image of a person in apathetic, hopeless despair. Suggesting they caused such despair that she took her own life on the spot is quite a stretch. Or if THAT'S the case, what on earth did they do to her in jail?
8
Yes! Police officers are unnecessarily confrontational very often, and often just over words. I once got pulled over while I was trying to take care of my mother in the hospital -- I went out to buy some supplies for her in an unfamiliar area, got lost, pulled into a parking lot to look at my map, and when I drove out of the parking lot from an exit he had apparently not seen, a cop pulled me over because he thought I had taken an u-turn. I explained that I had been parked, and pointed at my open map, and the parking lot exit, and he did believe me, but he got into a very aggressive questioning of me anyway, saying, "Is everything okay?" and getting very aggravated when I kept saying "No; can I go now?" 3 or 4 times. I was supposed to be obedient by saying "yes, everything is okay," but my mother was dying, so it was too much at the time for me to figure out that was what he wanted. He treated it as though I was correcting him -- it was bizarre. Police just want us to comply, even with very petty things that don't ultimately make sense, and I bet that I have my whiteness to thank for not getting in trouble with the law that day over not wanting to say "everything is okay" while my mother was dying.
11
Correct me if I'm missing something here, but in the following video,
https://youtu.be/i_Q_52rOk4Q
don't we see Sandra Bland "using provocation" and being confrontational? What do you mean that an assault of a public servant "would not be dispositive"? What I think follows from what you are saying is that the police are wrong for having a style of policing that, when presented with behavior like that shown in the video above, can sometimes eventuate in a situation where a person kicks an officer. And that just seems unrealistic to me. I have no idea what happened in this encounter either, but it sure looks to me like, in what happened at the mall, Ms. Bland was looking for an argument.
https://youtu.be/i_Q_52rOk4Q
don't we see Sandra Bland "using provocation" and being confrontational? What do you mean that an assault of a public servant "would not be dispositive"? What I think follows from what you are saying is that the police are wrong for having a style of policing that, when presented with behavior like that shown in the video above, can sometimes eventuate in a situation where a person kicks an officer. And that just seems unrealistic to me. I have no idea what happened in this encounter either, but it sure looks to me like, in what happened at the mall, Ms. Bland was looking for an argument.
The only silver lining in this extremely dark cloud is that the behavior of a small minority of police officers is finally attracting the scrutiny that could serve as the opening phase of a campaign to transform the American "justice" system into a true egalitarian system of justice for all Americans. In the case of Ms. Bland, both her death and her arrest demand investigation. Her alleged attack on the officer may well reflect a personal shortcoming, but it could also stem from the frustration African Americans must feel over police overreaction to even minor infractions of the law. If officers stopped every motorist who neglected to signal a lane change, the courts would buckle under the case load. But whether either of these arrests involves improper treatment, the suspicions both create arise from the observed operation of a system that tends to treat racial minorities as threats to public order rather than as citizens who deserve protection.
31
I'm tired of this reiteration of the "few bad apples" description of our problems with cops and jailers. The worst of the worst may indeed be just "a small minority," but the majority maintain a protective wall of silence around them, a silence more in keeping with a criminal gang like the Mafia. Silence is complicity. Silence is guilt.
68
Dear Mr. Blow,
The answers to your questions begin with the locations, Texas and Alabama. I'm not suggesting that the rest of America doesn't suffer from ignorance and bigotry but it just seems in the states that are still having supporters "rally' around their Confederate flags, the chances of a black person receiving equal treatment as a white person while being incarcerated are slimmer by even greater degrees.
Up in the Northern States, law enforcement officials in many instances don't even bother bringing black suspects to jail with shooting, choking or tasering being the expedient way of dealing with black suspects.
Change in our dealing with race relations still seems a long time coming even with the election of a black president. The key is not to give up, as hopeless as the task, seems for the alternative is an even grimmer picture.
The answers to your questions begin with the locations, Texas and Alabama. I'm not suggesting that the rest of America doesn't suffer from ignorance and bigotry but it just seems in the states that are still having supporters "rally' around their Confederate flags, the chances of a black person receiving equal treatment as a white person while being incarcerated are slimmer by even greater degrees.
Up in the Northern States, law enforcement officials in many instances don't even bother bringing black suspects to jail with shooting, choking or tasering being the expedient way of dealing with black suspects.
Change in our dealing with race relations still seems a long time coming even with the election of a black president. The key is not to give up, as hopeless as the task, seems for the alternative is an even grimmer picture.
11
Yes because there would never be any police brutality in Baltimore or Cleveland.
So tired of seeing the mindless hatred shown towards the South from residents of the most highly segregated states in the Union.
So tired of seeing the mindless hatred shown towards the South from residents of the most highly segregated states in the Union.
18
Chris, you're tired of the mindless hatred shown towards the South? Richard says up front he's not suggesting it's only the South, but it was the South that seceeded in order to keep slavery, and it is the South where predominantly lynchings occurred, and it is the South that produced that battle flag that so many Southerners still want to fly on their government grounds. It isn't mindless hatred. It's the observation of behavior. Racism is everywhere in the US (and may also be called mindless hatred). But it has a different history in the South, and today so many people seem to believe that the open demonstration of it (Confederate battle flags waved at the POTUS?) is acceptable. If the South wants to be seen as anti-racist, let's see the people of the South lead the way in ending racism altogether. Go ahead. Lead us.
14
The election of a black president has brought America's white racist vermin out of the woodwork. In the short term, that's made race relations worse. But in the longer term, maybe it's best to have that reality out in plain sight.
9
You give your readers only two choices: suicide or sinister. Could there be something else in the discussion? Something less sensational. Perhaps country-wide statistics regarding the race of the victims?I am never convinced that The Times and its contributors give us a complete dossier, one not influenced by personal attitudes perhaps. Just speculating, Mr. Blow.......
11
This is commentary, not a news report. And the news report was much more sensational, as it included the video of her being restrained on the ground by two officers.
For changing lanes without signalling??????
For changing lanes without signalling??????
38
The country-wide statistics show that the demographic with the lowest suicide rate is black female.
15
k pichon - Please, learn the difference between a newspaper article and an opinion piece. How, exactly, is one to write an opinion without being "influenced by personal attitudes". It appears to me you just don't like to hear what people like Mr. Blow have to say.
13
If the 'investigation' is done by a Texas Prosecutor, the outcome is already pre-ordained: whitewash. Driving while black, with out-of-state license, especially in Texas is asking for trouble.
87
At the very least, this is a failure of the police to take proper care of their prisoner: criminal negligence causing death even if it fails to meet the judicial standard for murder. The only thing open to question is whether the jailers goaded her into the act, in addition to providing her with the means to commit it.
15
Although police brutalization of black people is not confined to south of the Mason-Dixon line, it does seem to me that the loss of the Civil war engendered in the minds of many people in the states that lost a new kind of hatred: the determination to be ever more hateful toward black people, to take out on them the humiliation of losing the war, and to hate anyone who challenged their hatefulness. Somebody else wrote a comment recently which seemed to me to capture this attitude well. He/she wrote that when states started displaying the confederate flag starting in the 1960's, the real message being sent to blacks was this: We are being forced to allow you to vote by the federal government, but don't you ever forget that we intend to keep on abusing you, and because we are being forced to let you vote we will abuse you worse than before.
This is what the code word "states rights" means.
This is what the code word "states rights" means.
224
That war started in 1861. ONE HUNDRED years later is 1961. Centennial? Stop looking for what's not there.
6
"States rights" is the fraud that makes equal protection of law the travesty that it is in the US.
9
Even before the "states rights" dog whistle came to be, near the end of the Civil War, the plantation class started plotting the scenarios being used today. When it became obvious to some of the plantation class that they were going to lose the war (in 1864) they started looking for ways to end slavery, yet keep the black man in chains. They figured they could control the black population through laws that later became the Jim Crow laws. Unfortunately we are seeing the attitude getting its second wind now, thanks to the SCOTUS decision to end some of the key voting rights laws that were enacted ONE HUNDRED years later.
14
Aren't there video cameras in these jail cells to tell the true story of what happened? If they are not they should be to permanently put an end to "what if's."
14
Thank you, Charles, for bringing these two deaths in particular back to public attention. Women, no matter what or who, are still treated as second class citizens. The stories we have been given by the police are just stories and utterly unbelievable.
50
Failure to signal a lane change? You could easily convince me that 90 percent of the cars on the road today don't even have turn signals. I'm guessing that a more likely reason for the stop was driving while black with an out of state license plate (and would like to know what neighborhood she was in too).
Also, I've never tried, but it it doesn't seem to me that hanging oneself is an easy thing to do. I have heard of people trying and failing, and generally in the successful cases it seems to take a fair amount of planning and set-up. Somebody who could manage to successfully hang themselves with what's available in a jail cell - with minimal time and planning - must be one unusually determined, clever and innovative individual.
Also, I've never tried, but it it doesn't seem to me that hanging oneself is an easy thing to do. I have heard of people trying and failing, and generally in the successful cases it seems to take a fair amount of planning and set-up. Somebody who could manage to successfully hang themselves with what's available in a jail cell - with minimal time and planning - must be one unusually determined, clever and innovative individual.
420
Since "unsafe lane change" is a charge that is absolutely impossible to disprove, it is often used by crooked and racist police officers to pull people over with no justification whatsoever.
My interpretation of the Sandra Bland case: She was pulled over without cause. She was arrested without cause (and the only charge was "resisting arrest", which means the arrest was not lawful to begin with). She was beaten on the roadside without any justification whatsoever, as the videotape showed. And then she was mysteriously killed in prison, quite possibly by the same people who beat her.
That's not a mistake, that's a lynching.
My interpretation of the Sandra Bland case: She was pulled over without cause. She was arrested without cause (and the only charge was "resisting arrest", which means the arrest was not lawful to begin with). She was beaten on the roadside without any justification whatsoever, as the videotape showed. And then she was mysteriously killed in prison, quite possibly by the same people who beat her.
That's not a mistake, that's a lynching.
26
Thank you for writing this piece! We need to keep the pressure on until real change happens. Intolerable that these women lost their lives in police custody. The only hope is that their deaths provoke changes that will make sure that we will all live in a fairer and saner society .
28
The violence inflicted on African Americans and that community by police, is due to the policies and misguided beliefs of the majority society. That society ahs deemed that police cannot be held accountable for the abuse of African Americans. That belief is inherent in a certain population and has been handed down by the highest court in the land and the five Conservatives on that court, but this abuse has been going on for decades.
Nothing will happen to police in this case as nothing has happened in any of the deaths to African Americans, even with the Justice Dept. Society has said that black lives do not matter, and it has said that even before 1776.
Nothing will happen to police in this case as nothing has happened in any of the deaths to African Americans, even with the Justice Dept. Society has said that black lives do not matter, and it has said that even before 1776.
32
Another human being who happens to be black dies under
mysterious and questionable circumstances.
It's a day ending in "y." The official explanation is so
absurd one hesitates to characterize it as a lie.
mysterious and questionable circumstances.
It's a day ending in "y." The official explanation is so
absurd one hesitates to characterize it as a lie.
163
Every few days, it seems, we read about the police somewhere acting in a manner contrary to their sworn duty. A grandmother pulled over and thrown to the ground and handcuffed, a policeman in Florida who fabricated a DUI case to protect another officer, and of course, the shooting (and in Eric Garner's case, strangulation) of unarmed people of color.
These are aggressive acts and certainly criminal in nature. Too many "bad cops" have taken a military mentality toward the public. Everyone is a potential "enemy". Better psychological screening is needed and department heads need to adopt a zero tolerance of criminal conduct by their employees.
These are aggressive acts and certainly criminal in nature. Too many "bad cops" have taken a military mentality toward the public. Everyone is a potential "enemy". Better psychological screening is needed and department heads need to adopt a zero tolerance of criminal conduct by their employees.
317
Military is the word: current police philosophy--even equipment--is aping the military.
64
There is a fine line between being a police force and a standing army ready to deploy against the citizenry should we decide to express unhappiness with economic or political status quo. Given all the military equipment police departments have been given over the last decade, I often wonder what side of that line the police are on.
15
These women died tragically while in the custody of those who were sworn to protect and serve them. While they will never admit it and most of us will never accept it, far too often our police departments must harbor some mentally myopic men and women, whose guiding motto of "Might Makes Right" precludes empathy.
The people we elect to public office must change and those we entrust with our lives must change, but before any of this can take place we as a people must recognize that change has to start within ourselves. All lives matter and we all bleed red.
The people we elect to public office must change and those we entrust with our lives must change, but before any of this can take place we as a people must recognize that change has to start within ourselves. All lives matter and we all bleed red.
98
Am I the only one confused that, according to the table "Suicide mortality rate per 100,000 local jail inmates", only 75% of the deceased have a gender?
8
The other 25% were angels !
2
Does that change the argument? I don't think so. I admire your attention to detail, however.
1
@Michael
Exactly. And the table further down, squaring absolute numbers to percentages becomes a challenge. I think one is meant to infer that if the 14 Blacks is not 10% of the 86 Whites, that we have greater cause for alarm.
I am sure a lot of people take their lives in jail. Can you think of a more grim life than knowing you will be looking out at the world through bars?
Blow takes facts about incarceration and the way we value ALL lives and makes it another issue of race.
I am going to see what Frank Bruni is saying about Donald Trump these days. He seems to be the only one following Trump around...when he is not writing about gender politics.
Exactly. And the table further down, squaring absolute numbers to percentages becomes a challenge. I think one is meant to infer that if the 14 Blacks is not 10% of the 86 Whites, that we have greater cause for alarm.
I am sure a lot of people take their lives in jail. Can you think of a more grim life than knowing you will be looking out at the world through bars?
Blow takes facts about incarceration and the way we value ALL lives and makes it another issue of race.
I am going to see what Frank Bruni is saying about Donald Trump these days. He seems to be the only one following Trump around...when he is not writing about gender politics.
4
I recently saw a video of a couple of Hispanic unarmed men shot by police in Southern California. One of them died. I am surprised that there is so little interest in that shooting.
41
I find it hard to believe that cops would do anything nefarious against black people.
9
#SayHerName and #BlackWomensLivesMatter hashtags have been in use on Twitter for some time now. The plight of women of color in an often racist and harsh justice system has not gotten the attention it deserves.
Thank you, Charles for highlighting these two cases.
Over the past year, too many women of color have died in custody under suspicious circumstances. The case of Natasha McKenna, from my former home of Fairfax County, comes to mind. She was tased to death while shackled. The coroner gave "excited delirium: as her cause of death.
Is it any wonder then that there is so little faith in the authorities when deaths like these happen and, invariably, the system isn't at fault? Is it any wonder, when women are brutalized and the mainstream press remains silent, the public's faith is diminished? With so many cases that come up on a daily basis, we still don't have a US government agency accounting of how many deaths, of females or males, in each city and state. For an idea of how many we must rely on public citizen's website (KilledByPolice.com), The Guardian's The Counted, and now the Washington Post. That information, however, should be curated by the FBI.
Black Lives do matter. Black Women's lives absolutely matter. Police brutality needs to be ended by all of us, working together.
---
http://www.rimaregas.com/2015/05/excited-delirium-as-a-cause-of-death-is...
Thank you, Charles for highlighting these two cases.
Over the past year, too many women of color have died in custody under suspicious circumstances. The case of Natasha McKenna, from my former home of Fairfax County, comes to mind. She was tased to death while shackled. The coroner gave "excited delirium: as her cause of death.
Is it any wonder then that there is so little faith in the authorities when deaths like these happen and, invariably, the system isn't at fault? Is it any wonder, when women are brutalized and the mainstream press remains silent, the public's faith is diminished? With so many cases that come up on a daily basis, we still don't have a US government agency accounting of how many deaths, of females or males, in each city and state. For an idea of how many we must rely on public citizen's website (KilledByPolice.com), The Guardian's The Counted, and now the Washington Post. That information, however, should be curated by the FBI.
Black Lives do matter. Black Women's lives absolutely matter. Police brutality needs to be ended by all of us, working together.
---
http://www.rimaregas.com/2015/05/excited-delirium-as-a-cause-of-death-is...
231
I cover both #BlackLivesMatter and #BlackWomensLivesMatter on my blog and my titles often include hashtags so people can find them in searches:
Here are links to each:
http://www.rimaregas.com/?s=%23BlackWomensLivesMatter
http://www.rimaregas.com/?s=%23BlackLivesMatter
Selma 50 seems so long ago, but it was just earlier... I wrote about unity then. We still need it, badly.
http://www.rimaregas.com/2015/03/selma50-blacklivesmatter-moralmonday-na...
Here are links to each:
http://www.rimaregas.com/?s=%23BlackWomensLivesMatter
http://www.rimaregas.com/?s=%23BlackLivesMatter
Selma 50 seems so long ago, but it was just earlier... I wrote about unity then. We still need it, badly.
http://www.rimaregas.com/2015/03/selma50-blacklivesmatter-moralmonday-na...
15
I like your columns, but this one led readers to believe both these women were undoubtedly lynched by teams of prison guards out of racism and for no other reason. It's a little overblown, no offense, it would have been better to wait for the investigations, or even coroner's reports.
So I'd like to request a follow-up column in a few months, linking back to this, once the investigations are complete. If these were murders then the perpetrators should serve life in jail, no doubt. If these were suicides, as seems most logical, then they're just tragic like all suicides. If I don't see a follow up column or any other word on these, I'm going to assume they were in fact suicides, not that anyone here will take back their statements or their anti-police bias.