Another young black person dies in police custody in the US

[Floundering]

Sandra Bland, a university graduate who had just moved back to South Carolina to work in her old University.

She forgot to signal when changing lanes whilst driving her car & was pulled over. The police officer went OTT and pulled her out of the car & (it seems from heavily edited footage from the police dashcam) had to restrain her.

She was then arrested and kept in jail for a minor traffic violation, and found dead in her cell allegedly having hanged herself.

This picture is her mugshot but may have been doctored after her death

This woman was arrested on suspicion of a crime. A traffic violation. She was then incarcerated for 3 days after being threatened and (?) hurt by a police officer and ended up dead.

The other woman was 18 and arrested on suspicion of stealing a phone, she also ended up dead.

To say HA well if you feel sorry reading that then you MUST feel sorry for Fred West too (convicted of unimaginably worse crimes) just makes you sound petulant and a bit silly.

No-one is telling you you have to feel sorry for anyone. You feel how you like.

I use Fred West as I don't know much about the Daniel Pelka case, I assume it was of a similar magnitude from the context of the post.

Nicky- nacky regardless of the minutiae of the alleged offences, that officer lost the moral high ground when he lost his temper with a frightened arsey young woman.

I know, and have worked with many police officers in my time, lived with them and have friends who are or were serving officers, and I know they have had FAR worse verbal abuse thrown at them, and still managed to apprehend the person without physical violence.

Whether Sandra was killed as a result of a physical injury, or whether the violence shown led to a mental health crisis that lead to suicide we may never know, but the chain of events was triggered by that man's foul temper and somebody's beloved daughter and she is dead, and for that I hope he rots in hell.

whirpool. I'm the same I also don't know the exact workings but (and I'm speaking generally) both articles talk about them being in jail. They may have appeared in court who remanded them to jail and I think it would be unlikely that would be the same building as a police office, I would imagine its separate.

That's just an educated guess based on our arrangements, I would have to research it to be sure.

Certainly in Scotland a person will remain in police custody until the next lawful day and if remanded in custody will be transferred to prison/detention centre where they remain under their care.

She hung herself if prison a couple of weeks ago. She abused and starved to so death her young son. The world is a far better place without her, and Fred West too for that matter.

The reason I said about her anyway was your "Yes of course! Jesus Christ. She is DEAD" when asked about the junkie. I took from that that you would feel sorrow for anyone who died in custody.

floundering have you confused me with a different poster as I have never defended the officer and have said it's an outrage?

No-one should die in custody.

And if they are a young person who has been accused but not convicted of a relatively minor crime like these two women then I feel sorry.

Is that OK with you.

Absolutely :)

I find it repulsive that anyone would say, well if you don't feel sorry for Person A who has been convicted of the most appalling crime society can imagine, then you are being out of order if you feel sorry for Person B, whose circumstances are completely different.

You can feel how you like, and others on the thread can feel how they like.

And I feel sorry for them too.

This story has completely fallen off the radar here in the US.

I dont doubt that she committed suicide. But the circumstances of her arrest and the fact she was able to kill herself in custody, are very worrying.

She was being held because her bail wasn't paid. Poor people in the USA often stay behind bars until their court date, because they cannot pay the bail, this is not unheard of.

Her death was very tragic, I think we all agree on that.

Ah I never thought of the bail situation, that makes more sense as to why she was in custody for such a minor offence. Thank god we don't have that system in Britain!

No one has answered why the police would take a mugshot if she was dead?

Wouldn't they just say they didn't have one?

Why do people think the police are hiding something by not taking one as soon as she arrived at the station?

I stick up for the police in general but this is sickening and I can't understand how that particular officer's procedure can be excused.
Before I watched the footage I was expecting something else from the woman's behaviour, all she does is stand for her rights.
I've had two bad experiences with police where I live. In my case it's not to do with race or even xenophobia.
In one incident some hooligans broke the windows of our work van outside a Burguer King. The people working there quickly phoned the local police who arrived straight away and questioned the boys who were charged. Those policemen were doing their job.
It turned out one of the boys was a relative of someone high up in the local police so he (the policeman) actually phoned us and said that we were to drop the charges, our van would get fixed by us taking it to another town where a relative of the boy would do the work. I said no, it wasn't just about getting the work done, these boys had vandalized our van and we were losing work and also they had to see how their actions were wrong.

We got lots of disgusting phonecalls from this policeman and I could see our case was going nowhere. Also, had it been just my husband and I we would have dug our heels in, however we had three sons and in this town and with that policeman in his position he could make their life hell. I chose to comply which left me very bitter and although it was quite a few years ago I still feel the anger and humilliation.
Quite a few years later my youngest son was accused of drug trafficking because he stood up to them when they were mistreating someone. Luckily the judge saw through it and was disgusted at how the police behaved.
Had it been a different judge more easily hoodwinked who knows

I think the mugshot story is a distraction. I've no idea when it was taken. If you're told it was taken when she was dead, that's what you'll see. If no-one had suggested that, it might not ever occur to you. I don't know. But it shouldn't detract from the fact that she should never have been arrested and she's now dead.

She was so determined. I'll see you in court, repeated. Where did that fight go if you committed suicide? What happened in between that time? She'd just gotten a new job, she was apparently very happy (I know we never know whats going on internally but YSWIM) she was alert, knew her rights and spoke up. And then suddenly decides to hang herself? With a conveniently placed bin bag?

Even if she killed herself, which i seriously doubt, what the HELL was that doing in her cell? They even take your shoelaces away, so why would there be a bag? Why would there be a bin in the first place, arrestees wouldn't have anything to throw away?

I don't know anything about the US system. I had a look at that prison's mugshot gallery - they vary quite a lot, and many of the prisoners look (understandably) fairly blank.

But I've just watched the arrest video - the long one released by the police - and am horrified at the way Encinia behaved. It's worse that he was all Mr Nice Cop less than two minutes before, when he pulled someone over then waved them on their way with a friendly warning!

What was he doing for the five minutes before he went back to Sandra's car - smoking crack?? Because he was a whole different cop after that. And then the crappy attempts to explain himself on the radio (or to the recovery team, I wasn't sure.) "She was irritated and so forth ..." what?

I really, really understand why Americans are so angry about the way some of their police forces treat young black people.

As so many have pointed out - Encinia started this series of events by accelerating up behind her car (it's on the video.) He then chose to escalate things instead of simply giving her the appropriate ticket. If he hadn't done those things, Sandra Bland would not have died in prison.

He's been reassigned to desk duty for the duration of investigation. Not even suspended.

DA has called for an investigation into possible murder?!

Any chance of a link, Floundering? This was mentioned on the other thread, and I thought someone said it came from CNN and actually the DA said it would be treated like a murder investigation?

AFAIK it was also said about 7 days ago - not sure exactly when the autopsy took place, and if that might have changed things? Of course, I may have missed something which has happened since ...

Not near my pooter sorry Puzzled & not sure how to link on phone !

Will look later but if you go to Google news & put Sandra Bland in The search box anything recent will come up.

He hasn't said that. He said all deaths in custody are treated as suspicious for purposes of investiagtion. An independent review has been commissioned.

Hence the question mark, Garlick I saw several widely varying reports late last night but the common thread was that the DA felt there were unanswered questions.

I shall do some more digging.

CNN report