The way you keep bringing up without making any clear statement about its signficance is leaving the impression that you are implying something you aren’t willing to state: that either she is a terrible person, as shown by her lack of connections, and so less deserving of human rights, or that there is some tragic flaw in her family, that they don’t want to take care of her.
The problem with this is that there exists an idea that “black culture” is somehow inferior culture, that black people love and support each other less, have weaker family ties. This literally goes back to how people rationalized breaking up families on the auction block. This idea is tied into the idea that black people are violent and angry (it’s all "black people are closer to animals–savages!) and so the increased aggression of police toward them is legitimate self-defense. Your continued harping on how weird and substandard her family is–can’t even bail her out of jail, don’t they love her?–sorta evokes this idea, though I am sure that’s not your intention. But if you think there is some sort of meaning, some sort of **relevance **to the fact that her family couldn’t or wouldn’t bail her out, I think you ought to state it clearly or let the issue drop.
I say he gave an illegal order … now she’d DEAD … that’s murder …
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So if a cop tells her to put out a cigarette and two days later she hangs herself, it’s murder?
To some people, $500 is a lot of money. Some people may not bail out their relatives out of principle, in the belief that jail time might “straighten them out”. What I’m inferring from you is a belief that Bland’s death is less significant and/or deserves less scrutiny because her family wouldn’t or couldn’t bail her out. Her family is not the issue here, the police are.
Talk about a misplaced rant. How did his comments about her family turn into a tirade on racism. There are uncaring families black, white, yellow, brown, etc. Not everything is about race.
In my experience, they do. I bailed friends out (granted, that was in 80s) at 3am on Sunday morning - as long as the bail was already set. Hers was set at 1:30am Saturday.
This story is about race, and whether black people keep getting killed by cops because of institutional racism, or because somehow black people are just different, they just keep doing wrong shit to cops all out of proportion to other groups.
Maybe this particular story is a suicide thats been swept into the cultural narrative because it superficially appears to be an example. It’s too early to tell. But taking digs at how black families don’t do “being a family” right is a problematic part of that narrative.
And you are quite correct - he could have, but chose not to.
AFAICT, the escalation went:
[ul]
[li]Bad driver commits a minor offense[/li][li]Police officer pulls said bad driver over[/li][li]Police officer decides to issue a warning citation[/li][li]Bad driver begins mouthing off[/li][li]Police officer orders her out of the car[/li][li]Bad driver refuses[/li][li]Four times[/li][li]Police officer threatens to Taze her (which is against policy, I believe)[/li][li]Bad driver decides to get out of the car[/li][li]Police officer decides that bad driver needs to be cuffed while he decides how further to proceed[/li][li]Bad driver resists cuffing[/li][li]Bad driver is then arrested, taken to jail, and two days later hangs herself[/li][li]Anyone who says “I don’t understand how a family would let their daughter stay in the stripey place for three days over $500” is actually saying “black families are inferior, they should all be sold at auction”[/li][/ul]Seems pretty straightforward to me.
I know that’s the impression one might get from the relatively many cases that have made the news across the US over the past six-nine months or so (relatively to the years before that is); but this kind of stuff had been going on for ages and you’re just hearing about one guy here, one guy there, today.
For example, when Freddie Gray’s death made the news, the people of Baltimore came forward to explain what a “rough ride” was and that yeah, it had happened to them, too. The city had been sued over a couple even. Hell, it is/was such a common thing, the cops have a an official cutesy euphemism for the practice in the first place !
But had you and I heard word one about it before ? Newpe.
That’s the whole impetus behind #BlackLivesMatter : getting the media to, y’know, pay attention maybe ?
Beyond that, we *are *talking about rural Texans. Not rocket surgeons.
There’s still no garbage can in those, certainly no garbage can deep enough to need bags large and strong enough to hang oneself with. Small PD jail cells typically feature a cot, a toilet bolted to the floor, a sink or a folding table if you’re lucky and that’s it.
What would be the point of there being a bin ? The person in the cell has nothing to throw in it since their belongings are confiscated, and it’d be a weapon to boot. But even if we posit there might have been one for argument’s sake, Bland musta weighed anywhere between 100-150 pounds. You’re not going to hang that much weight from the bag in a foot bin. Hell, I routinely tear those apart with nothing but empty bear bottles.
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I don’t know of any “technical glitches” that can make the same cars appear over and over again
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I would be shocked if black people were not more likely to challenge police on bullshit requests or unlawful orders despite the increased chance of a horrible outcome because of familial and cultural exposure to stories of police abuse.
Remember the case of the black actress a while back that refused to provide ID to the cop?(while her white husband complied instantly) She said it was because her father told her stories of being unjustly harassed by police.
You are wrong about that, too, but it isn’t up to me to disprove it. Tell you what - take a plastic garbage bag, roll it up, and post a YouTube video showing that you can break it by pulling on the ends, and we can discuss it further.
Nothing, because the phrase implies that doing so is optional. When the person declines to do so, it doesn’t mean they are justified in pulling the person out of the car and roughing her up before hauling her in.
Warning was written, so should’ve ended the interaction. The cigarette order was designed to provoke a confrontation after lawful business was completed.
She had the right to say she was unhappy. Not a wrongdoing.
She was objecting to extralegal humiliating behaviour, but was still cooperating.
He used the Cig as an excuse to ask her to get out of the car, another provocation.
Mouthing off and failure to extinguish are not crimes.
He opened her door and later tried to bodily pry her from the car, and later pulled a taser and threatened her, after he had finished his lawful purpose there.
He took the encounter out of range of cameras, and it was violent, at least on his part.
Every one of these events is meaningful to Black Americans in their response to any future event such as this, in which they are involved and caught up in the moment. There had been plenty before which she was aware of and on her mind in that moment.
We hold only that, once a motor vehicle has been lawfully detained for a traffic violation, the police officers may order the driver to get out of the vehicle without violating the Fourth Amendment’s proscription of unreasonable searches and seizures.
The police didn’t need that justification. He was already justified in arresting her (at his discretion). He was trying to cut her a break, but she talked him into changing his mind.
The police get to exercise discretion in matters like this. They don’t have to arrest you, but they can if you insist. Discretion works both ways. Don’t like it? Move to Texas and vote for someone who will change the law.
