Texas releases full dashcam video of Sandra Bland's arrest

Not unfair.

100% illegal. Not that it matters to the discussion; by no means punishable by death.

(Do you have a driver’s license? That is illegal basically everywhere in the US.)

Having lived in Japan, I think the police’s attitude really changes when they know that people are not carrying guns everywhere they go. They are less scared or paranoid about getting shot on a random traffic stop so they’re more chilled out, maybe helping cause less arguments etc. Of course, it’s not unheard of that a cop gets attacked, or stabbed, but it’s not on the same level as not knowing if the driver’s got a loaded gun in his car or not and whether he might be unstable enough to use it.

After decades of driving in the U.S. I am aware of no one who has been pulled over for such on offense. Where I live that cop’s head would explode from the frustration of all the people failing to signal.

Silver sports car, right in front of the cop, fails to signal a lane change. Not pulled over.

Dark car, right in front of the cop, fails to signal a left turn. Not pulled over.

The Texas code does not specify a fine / punishment for failing to signal a lane change. The worst that cop could have done is given her a warning.

Cop demands she exit the vehicle because she refused to extinguish her cigarette. Is that illegal? Failure to extinguish? Is that an arrestable offense?

Looks like severe harassment to me. Failure to signal was the really shitty excuse.

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Really? I mean, they don’t teach it in Driver’s Ed, but I rather feel it’s common knowledge. I’ll spell it out, though.

There’s many, many small laws (like signalling while merging lanes) that are rarely enforced, unless you seem suspicious. Or, of course, when the cop is trying to stick it to you after the fact. On this latter count, I’ve seen it go both ways, for the positive and the negative.

They are given the discretion to enforce the laws as they see fit, and encouraged to make “gut decisions” on who is up to no good. More laws like this are passed all the time to give the police ever more discretion. So, they pull over suspicious looking people for things like not having their seat belts on, having burnt out tail lights, failure to signal, failure to stop, etc. Any demographic likely to be carrying drugs (according to cop logic: crappy car, POC, teenagers, etc.) are likely to be stopped for these reasons.

Now, in the middle of the night, ticketing drunk drivers, all well and good. They are protecting society. The remainder is Bush Sr. era “War on Drugs” policy that does nobody any good. I gather this was not the common practice in the 70’s and before. (I wasn’t alive; perhaps someone could chime in)

It is not super weird that a sports car would get by unmolested, but a little bit because usually sports cars are cop magnets for speeding and such. It’s entirely possible that A. Rich neighborhood, and he was told by top brass not to bug taxpayers (I’ve been told by one such a rich person this is a thing). B. Having a “Don’t Care” kinda day. C. Texting and driving, or similar, and didn’t see it.

Now, extinguishing your cigarette? Unlikely that is a law. There might be a local state or county level law about police compliance, but it’d be on shaky ground.

I mostly agree with what you’re saying but I need to speak up for the night people here. It seems to me that many parts of the world are 24 hour societies now, and there are plenty of people out and about at night, for a variety of reasons already discussed. The idea that bad people are out at night while all the good citizens of the land are home in their beds is one I’d like to remove from conventional wisdom.

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Is tough being a cop and dangerous! LAS VEGAS POLICE RELEASE FATAL SHOOTING BODY CAM FOOTAGE

Absolutely, you might sprain your wrist when hanging innocent women in the cell where you’ve illegally placed them, or get eye strain when editing the video to clear yourself of all wrong-doing!

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Guns are legal in many places that do not have the huge issues the United States has with police.

Jus’ sayin.

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Actually… Being a logger or fisherman is more dangerous to life and limb by about 10x.
Many many other jobs are much more dangerous than police work
http://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfoi/cfoi_rates_2012hb.pdf

“Oh but cops are victims of homicide so it is different.”
No not really. They still rank behind Taxi drivers and Convenience store clerks who have them beat in that department by more than 2x


They should probably be allowed to carry guns and execute people with no judicial oversight right?

Thank you for reading actual facts.

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It’d be less tough and dangerous if there wasn’t this authoritarian brutality and persistent racism, though!

If your ego is so fragile that the reflexive way you deal with disobedience with violence, you shouldn’t be a cop. Sadly…

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So they release the unedited dash cam video of the arrest. Looks like misdirection to me. What we need is the unedited video of the hours leading up to her death but right now everyone is talking about the arrest video. Well done cop shop. You changed the narrative and got us talking about something that isn’t germane to the murder.

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That video shows the cops killing the motorist and 1 cop being injured but not killed by the driver.
So, to recap, 50% of the cops in the video are unharmed. 0% are killed. 100% of citizens in that video where killed.

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Go tell that to Freddy Gray, Eric Garner, etc. etc. ad infinitum. While I understand your sentiment, Illegitimi non carborundum, it’s a tough idea to explain to people who are regularly harassed by the police. They’re the ones with the authority of the state behind them, as well as guns locked and loaded.

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Honest question: Is there anything actually being done by the public to stop this? Any protests, mobilizations of any sort? Every time I’ve asked this, all i get are “well i’d get arrested if i did, so…” and many of it’s variations.

This is way too normal, and all outrage is smoothly channelled through irrelevant internet forums.

You should mobilise. This is bullshit. These murderous shits will keep doing this if you keep doing fuck all.

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The new, shining Police Department motto that’s sweeping the country: “Bow and scrape, civilian. Or else.”

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Yes there have been. They have all been recast by the media as “RIOTS BY THE BLAXXX!!!” and thus lose the attention of anyone who can make a difference.

Or as one acquaintance (from Baltimore) said. “Don’t they know they arn’t getting anyone on their side by rioting and stopping traffic so I can’t get to work?”

For the protests to make a difference would require citizens who are not being systematically abused to care about those that are. Or even admit there is an issue.

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Yes, pretty much my thoughts. All i’ve seen are protests by people inside the community or very closely affected by the victims, but nothing remotely organised, massive. It’s not like the tools aren’t there. Even before social media you could get people to protest.

You’ve got the tools. Get it done. Strike for a day or two. Cut a few roads. This silence isn’t helping anyone.

Did you even read what I wrote? Cutting off roads makes the protestors the bad guys in the public’s eye.

Doing something massive would require people outside of the abused group to admit there is an issue and take action. Without that sort of support the protest gets re-written as “angry agitators are destroying our fair city!”

There are protests, but don’t expect a million man march any time soon… Although I’m sure the PDs are just itching to use their teargas, dogs, hoses, MRAPS, rocket launchers, sniper rifles, etc against any who would try to organize such.

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Yeah, I get that, but sometimes it’s the only way to get public attention. Your police state is getting out of control real fast.

The US used to have a very rich protest culture, it’s so effectively supressed now it’s depressing.

sounds an awful lot like what I hear over and over again.

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