The Racist Killing Fields in the US: The Death of Sandra Bland
The Racist Killing Fields in the US: The Death of Sandra Bland
Sunday, 19 July 2015 00:00
By Henry A. Giroux, Truthout | News Analysis
On July 9, soon after Sandra Bland, a 28-year-old African-American woman, moved to Texas from Naperville, Illinois, to take a new job as a college outreach officer at her alma mater, Prairie View A&M, she was pulled over by the police for failing to signal while making a lane change. What followed has become all too common and illustrates the ever-increasing rise in domestic terrorism in the United States. She was pulled out of the car by the police for allegedly becoming combative, and was pinned to the ground by two officers. A video obtained by ABC 7 of Bland's arrest "doesn't appear to show Bland being combative with officers but does show two officers on top of Bland."
A witness reported that "he saw the arresting officer pull Bland out of the car, throw her to the ground and put his knee on her neck while he arrested her." In the video, Bland can be heard questioning the officers' methods of restraint. She says: "You just slammed my head to the ground. Do you not even care about that that? I can't even hear." She was then arrested for assaulting an officer, a third-degree felony, and interned at the Waller County, Texas, jail. On July 13, she was found dead in her cell. Quite unbelievably, the police reported that she took her own life, and the Waller County Jail is trying to rule her death a suicide. Friends and family say that this scenario is inconceivable, given what they know about Sandra: She was a young woman starting a new job, who was eagerly looking forward to her future.
Sandra Bland was an outspoken civil rights activist critical of police brutality. She often posted videos in which she talked about important civil rights issues, and once stated: "I'm here to change history. If we want a change we can really truly make it happen."
Sandra Bland's family and friends believe that foul play was involved in her death, and rightly so. Their belief is bolstered by the fact that the head sheriff of Waller County, Glenn Smith, who made the first public comments about Bland's in-custody death, was suspended for documented cases of racism when he was chief of police in Hempstead, Texas, in 2007. After serving his suspension, more complaints of racism came in, and Smith was actually fired as chief of police in Hempstead." .............(more)
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/31945-the-racist-killing-fields-in-the-us-the-death-of-sandra-bland
= new reply since forum marked as read
The guy's name is "Malcom Jackson" ("Malcolm", perhaps?)
It started off as just a "friend" giving that quote to WLS-TV in Chicago. It took a few days for "friend" to become "witness." I can't find the quote on the WLS-TV website's article archive, so I assume it's buried in a video. A number of friends were interviewed by the tv station. I can't tell if the tv station sent a reporter down to Waller or not.
The reason I checked is simple: The road has been described as "rural" (I don't know that I agree with that, but from a sufficiently urban perspective all of Prairie View is "rural"
. What are the chances that years after graduating from Prairie View a friend just happens to see the entire stop starting from the time she's pulled over, is far enough away to not get involved, but close enough to see who's in the car through the window, past the cop? While very implausible things happen, one should at least admit that very implausible things are very implausible.
If he was in the car, sure, it makes sense; if he was following, sure. But both of those details would be very relevant and both are lacking. Moreover, Jackson would have had his name and face plastered everywhere. Instead, he goes from a named friend to a nameless witness. It also starts to sound like an assumption and not something he observed. What witnesses there from the beginning did say is, um, not widely reported.
