The case of Sandra Bland, who was arrested this past summer in Texas and three days later was found hanged in her cell at the county jail, has taken another interesting turn as the state trooper who made that arrest has been indicted on perjury charges.
While the charge against Brian Encinia is a misdemeanor and carries just the penalty of a year in jail and a modest fine, it was enough for the state police agency to “begin termination proceedings to discharge him.”
The key to the charge is the one-page affidavit that Mr. Encinia filed with jail officials in order to justify the arrest of Sandra Bland. Ms. Bland, 28, who was black, was returning to Texas from Illinois, to take a job at Prairie View A&M University, her alma mater.
Mr. Encinia justified the arrest in the affidavit, claiming that Ms. Bland was “combative and uncooperative” after he pulled her over and ordered her out of her car.
The video, which has been publicly released, shows a very different story than the one Mr. Encinia told, where he wrote that he removed Ms. Bland from her car to more safely conduct a traffic investigation.
A special prosecutor in the case said that “the grand jury found that statement to be false.”
Instead, the video shows that the trooper escalated the confrontation with Ms. Bland after she refused his request to put out a cigarette. At one point, Trooper Encinia says he will forcibly remove Ms. Bland from her car and threatens her with a Taser, saying, “I will light you up.”
Police originally claimed that Ms. Bland assaulted the officer who pulled her over. But video footage of the arrest and her death quickly called that into question.
As the New York Times put it, the release of the dashcam video “showed in excruciating detail how a routine traffic stop led to a shouting match and struggle between a state trooper and a woman, three days before she was found hanging in her jail cell.”
The video shows the officer pulling her over for a failure to signal a turn. To some, this is already a red flag that the officer was attempting a pretext stop to investigate the driver, rather than enforce the law.
Indeed, the video shows their encounter escalating into a physical altercation in which he threatened her with the stun gun. “I will light you up,” the officer said as he pointed the stun gun at her.
The officer explained that Bland was being written up for failure to signal a lane change. “You seem very irritated,” he said. “I am, I really am,” she said. She said she had pulled over to get out of his way and was now getting stopped and written up because of it. “You mind putting out your cigarette?” he asked testily.
However, she refused to put out the cigarette arguing “I’m in my own car.” At this point he ordered her out of the car and she refused. He shouted, “I’m going to yank you out.” She exited the vehicle and shouted insults and obscenities as the officer put her in handcuffs.
Ms. Bland said, “You just slammed me, knocked my head into the ground.”
In the affidavit, the officer “described Ms. Bland as ‘combative and uncooperative’ and said she had begun swinging at him with her elbows after she was removed from the car, handcuffed and forcibly subdued, according to his arrest report. ‘Bland was placed in handcuffs for officer safety,’ Trooper Encinia said in the arrest affidavit. ‘Bland began swinging her elbows at me and then kicked my right leg in the shin. I had a pain in my right leg and suffered small cuts on my right hand.’”
The grand jury found this account to be false. However, the misdemeanor penalty is barely a slap on the wrist for an incident that the trooper largely instigated on his own.
The Associated Press reports that about two dozen protesters attended Wednesday’s news conference where the indictment was announced. One protester’s sign read, “Legalize black skin.” Another protester called the misdemeanor charge “a slap in the face to the Bland family.”
Trooper Encinia also faces a wrongful death lawsuit filed by Bland’s family.
The arrest and death three days later continued a debate over the treatment of blacks by white law enforcement officers. Many have questioned the finding of suicide and denounced Ms. Bland’s treatment by the state criminal justice system, from her arrest until she was found dead in her jail cell.
As the Atlantic put it last summer, “Regardless of the circumstances of Bland’s death, however, a routine stop for failing to use a blinker should not end in several days of imprisonment and death. That has brought a natural focus on Waller County and the figures involved.”
—David M. Greenwald reporting
“The video, which has been publicly released, shows a very different story than the one Mr. Encinia told, where he wrote that he removed Ms. Bland from her car to more safely conduct a traffic investigation”
This is probably the clearest illustration of which I am aware of why police officers should not be allowed to view the recorded footage prior to writing their reports. The temptation to slant a report in one’s own favor is huge. I know from years of dictating operative reports how tempting it is to paint a rosy picture of what actually occurred. What we should not be doing is to allow a police officer to view the tape in advance so as to use the footage as a means of minimizing their own wrongful actions.
How differently might this be turning out for the officer involved if he had told the apparent truth “I lost my temper. I should have used greater restraint. I request further training in de escalation of tense or adversarial encounters” ? He might not have achieved his goals, but at least he would not be facing perjury charges.
This is at least the fourth example where the officer’s account greatly varied from the video footage – the Walter Scott case, the Laquan McDonald case, and the one in Cincinnati all are at huge variance from the video.
The “lady” sure had a mouth on her.
bit.ly/1ITEw1A
Plus, when people light a cigarette, it usually is to drown out the ganja smoke, or beer breath. Her attitude during the video would indicate to my untrained eye that she was on something affecting her usual exemplary behavior, since everyone in this article mentions how she contributes nothing to the situation.
Pointing out bad cops is necessary, but the people who fail to train and evaluate them is also a part of this. The ones who cover their career by tossing a guy they should know about is even more despicable.
Miwok
“The “lady” sure had a mouth on her.”
Not against the law as far as I am aware.
“Plus, when people light a cigarette, it usually is to drown out the ganja smoke, or beer breath”
This makes the huge assumption that you know that she lit the cigarette after being pulled over. Your statement as it stands is in error. When people light a cigarette, it is usually because they feel a chemically induced urge to smoke based on a need for more nicotine.
What the number of these incidents illustrates for me is a need for a change in one critical aspect of policing. Officers should be trained to tell the truth. This would of course mean that departments would need to be willing to take of the responsibility of retraining their officers when need was demonstrated and could not rely on scapegoating.
I have watched this basic mentality change within my medical group over the past 30 years. The previous model was to say as little as possible, to portray situations in which there was a bad outcome in the best possible light for the physician or treatment team, to stonewall, obfuscate, and above all never apologize as this could be seen as an admission of guilt. We have gradually moved to a model of full disclosure of what actually occurred. The model is not one of blame and shame, but rather determination of cause so that the problem can be addressed and corrected whether that means retraining, limitation of scope of independent practice until such retraining is achieved, or solutions to systems problems which are more frequently the cause than intentional or negligent malpractice. We discovered that an open, transparent, and honest approach is most productive not only in dealing with the single bad outcome, as what most people want is to have the error corrected to the degree possible, and an apology, but also in the prevention of similar bad outcomes in the future. This is the direction that I see as most productive for the police as well.
Clarification:
An affidavit is a statement under oath. Typically, an affidavit form begins with the wording, “I declare under penalty of perjury . . .”
In California, perjury is a felony. In a circumstance similar to the Texas incident, a California Peace Officer could/would be charged with Filing a False Police Report, a Penal Code sub-section for “Perjury.”
“Filing a False Police Report” can be charged as a misdemeanor or felony on the discretion of a district attorney.
Editorial Comment:
A typical defense to a criminal charge of perjury like this one is that–the defendant had a memory lapse compounded by a stressful circumstance–to mitigate any contention of intentional deceit. In the Texas episode, there was such a disparity with the police officer’s rendition of events and the video depiction that the officer loses all credibility in trying to employ this defense.
A criminal allegation of perjury is essentially a “death sentence” to a law enforcement officer’s career. Even if a full, total vindication, acquittal results from a subsequent trial, every area defense attorney would ask this same officer in every subsequent witness testimony, “Isn’t it true you have been previously charged with criminal perjury?” That likely best explains why immediate termination proceedings have begun.
goods points.
misdemeanor conduct seems misplaced here. but they are only charging the false statements, not the conduct itself. i’m troubled by that since his conduct was over the top.
memory lapse is kind funny, the classic senate hearings where the key figures suddenly get amnesia.
Phil
Thanks for your take on this issue. I have a question for you. I understand that you probably cannot speak for the situation in Texas. But, what do you think would be the outcome of the alternative approach that I had given. What would be the likely outcome for an officer who said in essence “I screwed up. I lost my temper and used excess force. I believe that it would be good for me to have training in situation de escalation or even anger management” ?
The officer certainly would have been seen in a more sympathetic light if he immediately acknowledged the poor judgment and begged for mercy. But with an eventual death involved, I can’t imagine how the officer’s career could have been salvaged under any circumstances.
But on the other hand, Texas Justice has always been an enigma to me.
Phil
“But with an eventual death involved, I can’t imagine how the officer’s career could have been salvaged under any circumstances”
Now this is a real shame, and in my eyes an indication of just how punitive and harsh our system can be. Although I find the officer’s behavior absolutely egregious, unless there is a direct casual link between his behavior and her death ( and I would not classify death by hanging as directly the result of his actions) this should not in and of itself end his career. If even a serious judgement error by a surgeon was followed by the death of a patient from a non directly related cause meant the end of a career, we simply would not have any surgeons.
I strongly believe that police, like everyone else should be given the opportunity to rectify their behavior when not directly resultant in death or proceeded by similar judgement errors ( as in the Tamir Rice case) and not have their life and that of their family destroyed by a lapse of judgment if non repetitive.
Might I fathom the linkage, through a trained eye, that made this officer liable for her death? Unless he gained access to her cell and strangled her, I am not seeing how he is even in proximity?
If these laws are still on the books, why? They are only enforced when this type of thing happens, nuisance behaviors? Yet California passes thousands of new laws per year without taking any away?
On the topic of equitable racial treatment, this video has been making the rounds in the past several hours. Looks pretty black and white:
Black Man Vs White Man Open Carry An AR-15 In Oregon…
“unless there is a direct casual(sp?) link between his behavior and her death ( and I would not classify death by hanging as directly the result of his actions) this should not in and of itself end his career. If even a serious judgement error by a surgeon was followed by the death of a patient from a non directly related cause meant the end of a career, we simply would not have any surgeons.”
Falsifying charges to effect her incarceration seems a very direct causal link. Do you think she would have killed herself over a fix it ticket?