Sandra Bland -- as a citizen -- has no obligation to be polite and deferential. To suggest that her attitude somehow justifies abuse against her is despicable. The police offer escalated the situation at every opportunity, even though it's his job to deescalate, to serve and protect, and to keep the peace.
When dealing with a suspicious suicide of course the public is going to demand whatever raw footage is available. Not a cropped and edited version. It doesn't matter that the edits are probably innocuous. Denying the public the raw footage by itself speaks of arrogance.
Or maybe as he was in the traffic lane, and now that she was clearly irate and argumentative, he did not want to stand there waiting to be hit by a car... while trying to explain to her that he was just issuing her a warning with no fine.
> Sandra Bland -- as a citizen -- has no obligation to be polite and deferential.
Except she did have an obligation to comply with the order to get out of the car.
> The police offer escalated the situation at every opportunity
That's a projection of what you want to see.
Once someone disobeys an order, they can arrest you... And when you refuse again, their job is to arrest you.
Being nasty and combative might be your right, but it in no way helps you.
If he had said "this is just a warning, there's no fine or penalty" (as he did with the first woman) the stop would hae been very much shorter.
His own actions prolonged the length of time that he was standing in the road. His own needless power-tripping prolonged the stop.
Around 11:50 she says "scared of a female - I was trying to sign the fucking ticket", suggesting that she considers that some action she performed was something he was scared of. I guess this was the reason he asked her to get out of the car.
She says "I can't wait until we go to court" refuses to stand still, refuses to listen to his responses, refuses to stand in view of the camera where he tries to put her. At 8:58 when he notes explicitly she seems "very irritated" I'm assuming, and with the subsequent search, that he's considering she's hiding something that warrants further investigation (like drug-driving?).
>His own needless power-tripping prolonged the stop. //
It doesn't seem like this to me. Assuming the stop was valid - and in none of the footage did I hear her say it wasn't - then what should he do, just ignore the ticket because she won't comply?
From a sister article (http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-sandra-bland-arrest-expe...):
>"In hindsight, [Retired Los Angeles Police Capt.] Meyer said, it may have been better to wait for backup. “The lady seemed committed to her resistance to lawful detention and arrest, so the presence of a backup unit might not have made much difference,” he said.
“This is yet another case of someone who chooses to illegally resist the directions of a police officer, thus escalating the situation, “ he said." //
That's exactly how this reads to me.
That's a non sequitur. She said "I'm in my car. Why do I have to put out my cigarette". His immediate reply was "Ok, then I'm telling you to get out of the car", implying cause and effect.
In all of the recent cases that have made the news, this question seems to go unposed, when it should be a litmus test WRT the overall approach to policing.
Instead, we have a culture that shifts the conversation to one about what the officer and victim each did as the situation escalated.
If the apparent exaggerated agitation was due to say drug-driving then the officer will have made a potential increase in the "safety and peace for the public". There is no way for them to find the facts without questioning the person and their refusal to comply peaceably makes it impossible.
If you're going to stop people for road-traffic offences, which does appear to increase safety, then do you really want LEO to let people off if they're obnoxious and evasive?
Not really. Their job is to assess the situation and see if it make sense to arrest the person. In most cases, the answer is that it doesn't.
Except asking her to put out her cigarette kind of seems to imply he intended to stay in her face for a good while longer.
> Being nasty and combative might be your right, but it in no way helps you.
Same for being an apologist for this. People have the right to be that way; I don't have the right to let them.
Like I said, it warrants further investigation.
Personally, I think it was a hit, but that is besides the point of my earlier comment.
http://bennorton.com/dashcam-video-of-violent-arrest-of-sand...
If someone edited the video, why did they choose to make their cuts at times where cars or people are in scene? They would have gone unnoticed had they occurred a few seconds earlier. Who would be so stupid?
In Rising Sun there's a slightly different polemic. A security video from a murder is edited before being given to the police (albeit more sophisticated in editing), and the detective takes offense to the assumption that it wouldn't be noticed, because of a (stereotype) Japanese attention to detail and an American indifference.
But, as another commenter stated, we can't know the answer until we know what the original video holds.
Interestingly, if they then release the full video which shows nothing, then suspicions around the overall case will presumably be calmed. That would make me wonder if it was an intentional red herring to engender more trust and reduce suspicion around her eventual death. After all, why else release obviously edited video that would raise suspicion only to later quell it with unedited footage that was always available?
Sadly their actions have created suspicion. Further releases of video will be doubted by a wide range of people, from calm but cautious scrutineers to rabid conspiracy theorists.
Truth doesn't matter at that point.
Not saying this is happening. But, if the full video suddenly comes out and is "all-clear", then the police department will certainly receive that benefit, whether intentional or not.
Maybe the editing was accomplished via an interface that just had a time slider.
Maybe the minimum resolution was 1 second, or five seconds...
Hell, maybe the best tech they had was the "use two VCRs, push play on one and push record on the other, push pause at the beginning and end of the segment you want to remove" method. ;)
Sure, its looped a few times. And the update is that they are re-uploading it.
And the story is that because the shitty quality video long after the main event happens has a few frames messed-up - which more than likely originates from technical issues - that this proves that there is something being covered up.