Sandra Bland: American Martyr
A perspective writing exercise and truth tale with hyperbole, an exploration on the misuses power …
The officer pulled her over under the auspices of legitimacy. When he rudely introduced himself, she told him she was waiting on him. I'll point out that you have no obligation to speak to or to be friendly with law enforcement. When she answered his next question, he said rudely “Are you done?” When she said she was answering his question, he asked her to put out a cigarette. I'll point out that no one has the right in to tell you when to smoke or not to smoke in your own vehicle. When she stated the facts about her smoking rights, she was told to get out of the car. I'll point out that officers only have this right if they perceive a threat in their routine doings. At this point, the only facts are that she did not use a turn signal and that she refused to stop smoking. Thus, there was no threat, and thus there was no right to ask her to get out of the car. Then, after she refuses to get out of the car because, as she also stated, he had no right to ask her, he loses his temper and continually asks her to do what he has no right to ask her in a ruder and ruder tone. Finally, he pulls a taser on her and intimidates and frightens her to the point that she gets out. I'll point out that harassment is usually part of statutes within state constitutions and that he is probably in violation of law here since, as pointed out earlier, that harassment arose from an invalid request to get out of her car, and thus the harassment does not arise from fulfillment of his law enforcement duties, but from his own reckless and immature behavior management. Additionally, once he stated she was under arrest for resisting his illegal request for her to exit her vehicle, he then suddenly barks back that she is, in fact, under arrest. I'll point out that there is no legal basis for arresting her at this point, and that as a case in point, she, if anyone, should have been conducting a “citizen's arrest” on him. I'll point out that law enforcement enjoy special privilege to arrest citizens but that citizens are likewise able to arrest law enforcement if they see a crime. As stated earlier, the crime was harassment due to abuse of power after a legitimate traffic stop. Once out of the car, he could have chosen a variety of restraint methods, but chose the most painful and humiliating method, that of cuffing while prostrate. I'll point out that this is an abuse of power, because first off, he has a toolkit of restraint methods that he has been trained in, but he chose a method reserved for high threat situations.
Now, the last point is regarding her suicide and the report that was released today by the legal team for the defense. They emphasized that it was suicide according to the autopsy. I'll point out that when faced with humiliating treatment and unjust circumstances beyond control that many people feel like “giving up” or “quitting.” For someone who had, according to the family, already attempted suicide in the past, this type of egregious treatment can be the tipping point. Now although one could not argue first degree murder for the officer or legal agency, one could easily argue manslaughter because the incidents that led to her free choice to commit suicide were due to exacerbations of her condition that were the direct result of enforcement negligence on the part of the officer. This is why we have manslaughter, second degree murder, etc., in order to have a name for the type of killing that results from gross negligence. This needs to be considered by the plaintiff. The last point I will make is that there are some, who although they defend her, state that she should have been humble and subservient, or simply exercised common sense, in her behavior towards the officer. This is absurd. This would only pertain to her being rude if she was unduly rude from the get go. And a simple watching of the tape reveals not. When an officer approaches a vehicle and asks in the smug way they usually do, m'am, do you know why I pulled you over, etc., that is rude. Of course we know. Stop being passive aggressive, and simply actively state why you are doing what you do if you are law enforcement. Or, like she said, do what you do … cite me for a turn signal. Thus, the entire basis of her anger and outrage at her treatment was predicated on the pugnacious and passively aggressive behavior so common to law enforcement. In general, they act without any perception of common sense or any appreciation for the common decency with which people - especially people committing misdemeanors or infractions - should always be treated. Again, I have had plenty of well behaved officers at routine stops, but last year I had a backup officer brandish a gun on the passenger side of my car when I was pulled over for going 45 in a 35. That's absurd, and so was this. Honestly, of all the cases of de facto black murder that have had a public narrative as of late, however much I personally disagree with some of the extreme ones, they all have some scholarly basis in truth and can be argued for sensibly by the white hegemonic elite. This case, in my opinion, has no such narrative. In short, this was an egregious, reckless, rude, and offensive abuse of power, a case of harassment, and simply a case that defies common sense in every regard.
basis for culpability since it was exacerbated, albeit unintentionally, by the officer who illegally requested her not to smoke, illegally threatened to taze her for no offense, and illegally arrested her for no crime, and then recklessly cuffed her and degraded her as if she were an animal. Moreover, the report the officer filed is erroneous. It makes no mention of the altercation, and that was not due to the requirement by his agency that it be clinical or analytical in content, rather it was due to the fact that if it had in fact been straightforward, it would have said what I said above. It would have said, “I saw a black female fail to signal before turning. Instead of flashing my lights due to the minor infraction, I busted a U-turn and stalked her. After I frightened her, I pulled her over and approached her in a provocative and rude manner. She became notably frustrated with my antics when I asked her to stop smoking, so I decided to threaten to taze her to put her in her place. Somewhere along the line I also decided to arrest her for no reason, thinking that I could blame my negligence on the fact that she pushed at me when I aggressed on her for smoking. After she finally listened because I scared her, I decided to humiliate her by lying her down and cuffing her extremely hard. I was justified in doing this Captain because I had to arrest her since she punched at me when I tried to force her to stop smoking for no reason.” Feel free to read the actual report, and think to yourselves, in your 'heart,' so to speak, whether you actually disagree with the narrative I have written above. I think if you have compassion, it will resonate with you on some spectrum, regardless of how far.
Now, the real danger in this is the politicization. The establishment right wants to affirm the law enforcement's ability to request you exit your car during perceived threats, and fail to see that that right is predicated on just use of it. The argument by the right that she should exit anyways and sue later is based on the false pretense of her ability to do so fiscally, to obtain the dash cam tapes, and to have viability in that pursuit. In cases where you are innocent, that defy all common sense, one must buck authority. Although an extreme example, let's take the Holocaust. The SS acted under legal authority. Does that make it okay for them to forcibly remove a family from their home? No, absolutely not. The extreme example serves to elucidate the fallacy on the right, namely, that one must uphold the principal of law even when they know the officer is enforcing invalidly, illegally, unjustly, etc. This is wrong. I would argue that although this case is certainly not as far on the spectrum in an individual sense, that the pattern itself, the behavior itself, is identical. The Holocaust just represents what can happen when this abuse of power can go unchecked. The establishment left, on the other hand, wants to emphasize that this is a white on black issue, or power on black issue, whether white or otherwise. That is also seriously flawed. In doing so, they are failing to recognize two key points that dispute this, namely the break-down of the African American family and the higher rates of black on black crime and black on white crime, than of officer on black crime. It only takes a common internet search to find scholarly publications by many notable African-American conservatives that have identified these issues, and for those looking, just find Larry Elder, Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams to start you off. In light of the fact that many minority communities do, in fact, have self growth and real internal and external causes for anger and turmoil, including the African American community, but not at the expense of any other community, one must recognize that the primary issue is power, and the abuse of it. Let me be clear, every collective community and culture has growth to achieve. As a Jew, I often wonder how to reconcile the progressive bias of Tikkun with the religious fervor of Chabad, or the secular politics and radical awesome ideology of Noam Chomsky and Amy Goodman with Milton Friedman. And don't even get me started on Israel and how the right and left binary is also wrong there as well! We are hardly done with our own quest. But the conservatives within the black community are also right about their own community, and there is still growth that needs to occur. This is true for every body of people, again, most of all my own. And so, to return to the point at present, which is to assess the media narrative by the left, I'll point out that when those within the black community turn this into an exclusively black issue, they do a disservice to people of alternative color like myself, or people not of color like poor whites, who have also been abused by negligent officers and law enforcement officials. The issue is that those who have power must be checked on that power. Instead of exacerbating and enflaming the African American community with words and narratives of black versus white, turn that into a narrative of fighting an abuse of power on a nation wide scale. To be clear, I am not saying that there is not a higher amount of officer's profiling blacks or other people of color, as there most likely is according to quantitative studies about stop and frisk in NY, and also according to other studies of other communities and demographics. Rather, what I am arguing is that, just like the right misses the point about the principle of law, so too the left misses the point that abuse of black lives is only the present example of an abuse of power. It is just one case of an abuse of power, not the only case. Let's find the happy medium on this situation and use Sandra's martyrdom as a means of checking law enforcement with overdue balances.
And no, I am not here to just complain, rather I have two immediate suggestions. First, there should be a federal requirement that every law enforcement official possess a criminal justice degree from a four year institution. Secondly, there needs to be a major national moratorium on the rights of individuals versus the rights of officers of the law. With regards to this second point, one must not base that dialogue on the legal canon as it stands, but must also include philosophical, classically liberal, and historical grounds for the basis of liberty, the exercising of rights, and the time at which one can or cannot coerce another into custody such as this example elucidates. This opinion is my own. And of course body and car cams … but no city cams except in heavy urban areas.
