There is rising fury at the death of yet another Afro-American as a result of an encounter with police. Sandra Bland died after being held in a police jail for a week. She was originally arrested when she was pulled over on a Texas highway for allegedly failing to use her turn signal. Concerns have become the greater because of the publication of a video recording of the arrest, taken by the dashboard camera in the police patrol car. The white officer, Brian Encinia is seen approaching Bland's vehicle after he had pulled her over. Leaning in the window, he mentions her traffic violation and then says that she seems agitated, to which she replied that sure she was agitated; she had just been pulled over by a police squad car. At this point the policemen orders her to out put out her cigarette. Bland refuses, saying she has every right to smoke in her own car and that she is not under arrest. At this point the officer switches from restrained politeness to outright aggression. He demands that she gets out of the car, and when she refuses threatens to “light her up” with a taser. She obeys but Bland continues to protest her treatment, which only makes the policeman madder. Off camera a struggle ensues, as a result of which the black girl is pinned to the ground and can be heard complaining that her head has been banged on the road. What is clear from this recording is that the escalation of this situation from the most minor traffic violation to a violent arrest, which ended in the death of the detained woman, was entirely the fault of police officer Encinia. He was clearly infuriated when the young woman refused to put out her cigarette and at that point lost sight of his duty as a guardian of the law and instead became an overweight white fascist thug imposing his will on an uppity black girl. It seems almost certain that had Encinia stopped, for the same traffic violation, another attractive, sassy, middle-class girl, not afraid to talk back to a cop, and that girl had been white, rather than black, it seems almost certain that Encinia would have behaved differently. The racism still inherent in too many police departments around the United States has to be of the greatest concern. It is bad enough that urban police were well on their way to looking like US combat soldiers in full body armor riding around in tanks. It is high time that white and Hispanic police officers still have not got it into their heads that they are not little Storm troopers on a personal power trip, but public servants with a duty to protect the rights of all citizens, regardless of race, creed and color. The sort of behavior they should be seeking to emulate was shown earlier this month at a Klu Klux Klan march in Alabama. One of the hate-filled marchers, an elderly man, was suffering from heat stroke and staggered out of the procession. He was helped gently into the shade by a policeman, who found him a seat, got him some water and called for an ambulance. The gasping racist protestor raised his hand feebly in thanks. As well he might. The officer, who had helped him in this exemplary and unprejudiced fashion, was black.
