Sandra Bland was stopped for a traffic violation on July 10th in Waller County, Texas. She was ultimately arrested and charged for assault of a police officer which was captured by Deputy Encinia’s dashcam. This is the transcript of the video. There is also recently released footage of of the video that Sandra took from her cell phone. Sandra was found hanging in her jail cell on July 13, 2015 and her death was ruled a suicide. The investigation ultimately revealed procedural problems with both Deputy Encinia’s traffic stop and the checks of inmates in the jail.
In early 2016, Deputy Encinia was charged with perjury based on his police report. The deputy was fired in March 2016 based on how he handled the traffic stop. The perjury charges were dropped in June 2017 and the deputy agreed to never work in law enforcement again. Kin later won a $1.9 million wrongful death lawsuit against the law enforcement agency.
The deputy’s encounter with Sandra Bland was videotaped in full yet there issues with the deputy telling the truth about what happened in his report. The full report has not been released to the public. What is the importance of having a police report? What information were you able to gain from the video or transcript of the traffic stop? Are the contradictions in the report a major concern, especially with the release of the dash cam video to the public in this controversial case? Should all encounters be video and audio taped and submitted as evidence in lieu of writing a report or should they continue to be a supplement to the written report? Living in a technology era, what other possibilities are present to record and show the truths of the situation?
Possible academic article searches: Sandra Bland (multiple articles), perjury, police reports,
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9t1N2wRvjc
https://www.cnn.com/2015/07/21/us/texas-sandra-bland-jail-death-explain/index.html
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