A Witness That "Really Couldn't See Anything" & Edited Video That Wasn't Edited

NYPD arrest protesters on 34th street in NYC (Photo Scott Heins)

"I’m still just at a loss for words, honestly, about this whole process. How this switching lanes with no signal turned into all of this, I don’t even know."

That's a quote from the transcript of a newly-released voice-mail that 28 year-old Sandra Bland left for a friend after being arrested and  booked for an illegal lane change in Hempsted, Texas back on July 10th.

Frankly, like many around the nation I'm still at a loss for words myself and the questions in this case outweigh the answers.

Despite statements from Waller County, Texas officials claiming autopsy results prove that Sandra Bland's death while in custody was a result of suicide, vigils, marches and protests like the one (pictured above) that took place in mid-town Manhattan last night reflect a deep skepticism of local Texas authorities' account of how an African-American woman pulled over for failure to signal a lane change ended up asphyxiated by a garbage bag tied around her neck.

State trooper Brian Encinia

The release of the dash cam video showing Texas state trooper Brian T. Encinia (pictured left), who previously worked for a dairy and as a fireman before becoming a state trooper in 2014, escalating a confrontation with Bland during a questionable traffic stop only adds doubt about the quick conclusions reached by Waller County officials.

Conclusions which of course absolve the police and blame Bland, her mental state and traces of marijuana found in her system for her own death.

During the video, Encinia can be heard and seen getting unnecessarily confrontational and aggressive with Bland after asking her to put out her cigarette; and that's before he pulls out a taser and threatens that "I will light you up" if she does not comply with his orders to exit her car.

Several sections of the dash cam video appear to have been clearly and intentionally edited, though local officials on Wednesday chalked that up to unspecified problems uploading the approximately 52-minute video to YouTube.

Officials later re-released yet another version of the video. Which is almost as sketchy as making easily detected edits to the original version then denying it had been edited.

Now another woman named Alexandria Pyle who had been jailed for unpaid parking tickets at the same time that Bland was being held has come forward to tell a local ABC affiliate station that she believes Bland committed suicide.

The problem with the opinion she gave during the interview is that Pyle is not an expert, nor was she sworn in to give testimony or cross-examined.

Cell where Sandra Bland was found dead on July 13th

Pyle wasn't even in the same cell with Bland.

During the interview she also admitted that the only way she could see or communicate with Bland was through a very small rectangular opening in the door of the cell; as she herself said, "So I really couldn't see anything."

So it's kind of interesting that she appears on television as a "witness" to a suicide she admits she didn't actually witness.

Waller County officials better hope Pyle's unpaid parking tickets didn't "magically disappear" - it certainly wouldn't surprise me if Waller County has it's own version of Ferguson, Missouri's Mary Ann Twitty.

Remember what her magic wand did to tickets issued to friends of municipal employees in Ferguson?

Personally, I join many others in remaining unswayed in the opinion that something wrong happened in that jail between the confrontation caught on dash cam and the time she was supposedly found on the morning of July 13th.

This is far from over though, and thus far it's clear that there a lot more questions than answers.

But the FBI is still investigating the incident and Sandra Bland's family still intends to conduct an independent autopsy of her body with a different medical examiner.

In the meantime protests are continuing in Hempstead, Houston and even New York City where  a large group of protesters made their way through mid-town Manhattan last evening and 14 people were eventually arrested by members of the NYPD for staging a peaceful sit-down at 34 street and 6th ave in Herald Square just next to Macy's and a block from Penn Station.

As 23 year-old Celeste Russell of Dallas, Texas told Gothamist reporter Scott Heins during the march last night in New York City: "It's heartbreaking. Because as a black body in this country, you're never allowed to be innocent until proven guilty." 

As the deaths of Akai Gurley, Tamir Rice and so many other members of The Counted at the hands of police officers attest, these days the concept of "innocent until proven guilty" are words that seem to apply selectively. 

Words that certainly didn't apply to many of the 648 The Counted has identified as having been killed by members of American law enforcement this year.

Time and evidence will tell if Sandra Bland gets added to that list.

What Really Happened to Sandra Bland?

Sandra Bland known as "Sandy" to her family

July 17, 2015.

It's been one year to the day since NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo used an illegal choke hold on an already-subdued Staten Island resident named Eric Garner as he pleaded "I can't breathe, I can't breathe" before dying in the street like an animal.

Despite video evidence taken at the scene, a Staten Island grand jury heard the evidence and failed to indict Pantaleo and he's still on active duty with the NYPD to this day.

Sadly, today also marks one week since Sandra Bland, a 28 year-old African-American woman from Napersville, Illinois (pictured left) was pulled over by a Texas state trooper for failure to signal a lane change at about 4:30pm on July 10th.

What happened between the time the trooper approached her vehicle and Bland and the trooper got into some kind of verbal disagreement still isn't clear, but video footage of a portion of the traffic stop that was taken by a bystander shows Bland face down in the grass on the side of the road with a member of law enforcement on top of her with his knee in her back holding her down while other unidentified officers stand around over her.

Sandra Bland on the right with an officer on top of her

In the video Bland can be heard arguing about having been slammed to the ground by the trooper and according to an article in The Chicago Tribune posted last evening, Bland's older sister Sharon Cooper stated:

“We understand that she was stopped,” Cooper said. “We understand that she felt that she was handled very harshly. That she was handled in a way that was overzealous from her perspective.”

How Bland's failure to use a turn signal to make a lane change elicited that kind of response still isn't clear either, but according to a statement by a spokesman for the Texas Department of Safety, Erik Burse, Bland was about to be released with a warning but she allegedly kicked the officer at the scene.

Waller County Jail where Sandra Bland's life ended

Bland was eventually handcuffed, placed in a cruiser and taken to the Waller County Sheriff's Office & County Jail located in Hempstead, Texas about 50 miles northwest of Houston (pictured left).

Bland was booked for "assault on a public servant" and placed in one of two "tanks" inside the jail facility specifically reserved for women; and it was there she was found dead about 9am Monday morning less than three days after her roadside confrontation with the trooper.

What happened to Bland inside that jail is still a mystery but her death has sparked global outrage and demands for answers from citizens, politicians (including Texas State Senator Royce West and Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee), clergy and activist organizations including the local Houston chapter of the NAACP.

Tricia Bentley, a spokesperson for the Harris County Institute for Forensic Sciences in Houston where an autopsy of Bland's body was conducted on Tuesday, said the cause of death was ruled suicide by hanging.

Statements from Waller County officials indicate Bland was given breakfast at 7am Monday morning and the last time guards saw her alive was about 8am when she asked them about using a phone through an intercom. She was later found about 9am with a garbage bag tied around her neck that had been secured to a partition in the ceiling of the jail cell.

But it's not just the strange circumstances of Bland's death, it's also the county where it occured.

According to an article by St. John Barned-Smith published in The Houston Chronicle earlier this morning, "Waller County has a complicated racial history. With a largely rural population, the county still ranked among the state's highest in a study from the Alabama-based Equal Justice Initiative that tallied lynchings from 1877 to 1950, with 15 documented cases. And the current sheriff was suspended as Hempstead police chief in 2007 for racist behavior."

Waller County Sheriff Glenn R. Smith

The Sheriff in question, Glenn R. Smith (pictured left) who also spoke at a press conference about the incident last week, is part of Waller County's "complicated racial history" too.

According to an article by Eric Hanson published in The Houston Chronicle back in April, 2008, Smith was fired from his job as Hempstead police chief following allegations leveled against him and four officers of police misconduct towards African-Americans during a "mistaken drug raid and a strip search conducted on area youths by Hempstead police."

After being fired as police chief Smith was selected as the Republican candidate for Waller County Sheriff and won.

When his removal from office was brought up by a reporter at a press conference on Thursday, Smith dismissed the allegations of racism as being politically motivated and insisted that "Black lives matter to Glenn Smith." 

Interestingly Smith isn't the only official involved in the investigation of Sandra Bland that seems to be part of Waller County's "complicated racial history" either.

Waller County DA Elton Mathis

District Attorney Elton Mathis, the Waller County prosecutor handling Bland's case, was publicly accused in June of sending some troubling and threatening text messages to Reverend Walter Pendleton according to an article by Bobby Blanchard posted on The Houston Chronicle Website on June 3rd.

Whether the text messages are threatening or not isn't clear, but they are rather disturbing considering they were sent by a DA in response to a request that he provide information to clarify allegations that he tends to prosecute African-Americans at a much higher rate than whites in Waller County.

Mathis did announce that he will request that a grand jury review the evidence to see if charges should be brought in response to regards to Sandra Bland's death.

Regardless it's not any one single thing in this case that makes it so controversial, after all Waller County is near the campus of the predominantly-black Prairie View A&M and in the past there have been allegations that county officials actively blocked black college students from voting.

It's a combination of the fact that two major officials involved with the investigation in Waller County have had charges of racial bias leveled against them before.

Plus in comments made in interviews and during a press conference held by the members of Bland's family, and in a number of messages posted on social media by her friends and former college classmates, all who knew her insist she was not suicidal or prone to the kind of deep depression that would lead her to take her own life by hanging herself with a garbage bag.

She was a gifted and active student and a graduate of Prairie View A&M, and she'd just gotten a new job at her alma mater; which is where she was headed when she was stopped by the Texas state trooper last Friday.

To add to the intrigue, she was also an active supporter of Black Lives Matter and used her Facebook page to protest against police violence against, and mistreatment of people of color.

Given the fishy circumstances of her death and the intensity of global media attention to this case at a time when the high-profile deaths of unarmed citizens at the hands of overzealous police is already such a major domestic issue, we can expect to hear much more about the facts of this case in the coming days as members of Bland's family and their attorney head to Hempstead to get answers about what happened inside the Waller County Jail last Monday morning.

In the wake of media pressure, demands for answers from politicians and petitions signed by thousands of people around the nation, the Texas Department of Safety has called on the FBI to review the evidence as it emerges.

Regardless it's yet another case of members of local Texas law enforcement reacting with excessive physical force against an unarmed African-American woman that is totally disproportionate to the relatively minor infraction for which she was stopped.   

Frankly it's a disgrace that a minor traffic citation like an illegal lane change would lead to someone being arrested, let alone loosing their life.

It's a sad statement about where we are as a nation as Sandra Bland becomes yet another member of The Counted.