A police officer from Prairie View, Texas, has come forward with allegations against his superiors involving the arrest of Sandra Bland, a black woman found hanged in her jail cell following a traffic stop. The cop claims that incriminating details from his incident report were suppressed.
In conversation with The Huffington Post, officer Michael Kelley claims that an assistant district attorney threatened him when he expressed his desire to testify before a grand jury investigating Bland’s arrest and jailing, or to the Bland family attorney as part of their federal lawsuit against Waller County.
Last July 10, Bland, an Illinois native who had recently taken a job at her alma mater, the historically black Prairie View A&M University, was pulled over by state trooper Brian Encinia after allegedly failing to signal a lane change.
Dash cam footage from Encinia’s patrol car captured pieces of what escalated from a routine stop. Encinia evidently became angry when Bland refused to put out a cigarette, drawing his Taser and aiming it at her, shouting “I will light you up! Get out now!” Bland exited the vehicle, and she and Encinia disappeared from the frame. (The Texas Department of Public Safety, which released the footage, was the target of heavy criticism as the dash cam footage appeared to have been doctored; the department claimed inconsistencies were the result of technical errors.)
In the dash cam footage, Bland can be heard crying and screaming. Video taken by a bystander shows Bland pinned to the ground by Encinia and a female state trooper; Bland is heard saying that she can no longer hear after Encinia slammed her head into the pavement. Another witness told local news reporters that Encinia “tossed [Bland] to the ground, knee to the neck.”
Kelley arrived on the scene after Bland was handcuffed and placed in the back of Encinia’s patrol car; he says his initial report noted that Bland had “a large mark” on her head, possibly consistent with someone who had been kicked. (Bland reportedly complained of head pain shortly after her arrest.)
As Bland was in the back of the state trooper’s car, Kelley claims that he heard Encinia on the phone with his supervisor. He reportedly admitted that he didn’t know how he would charge Bland, but he promised to “come up with something.” This detail, like the mark on Bland’s head, was absent from Kelley’s official report, which the officer says was filed without his permission.
Bland was eventually charged with assaulting a public servant. She was placed alone in a cell at Waller County Jail, as police claimed she was a threat to others. Her bail was set at $5,000, an amount her family could not afford.
Three days after her arrest, on July 13, Bland was discovered dead in her cell. Police claim she was found in a “semi-standing position” in her cell, and suspected she had hanged herself. A week after her death, which officials ruled a suicide by hanging, police released video from a camera outside Bland’s cell; however, the camera, which police claim is motion-activated, did have any footage from 7:34 to 9:07 a.m., a window in which Bland’s death is believed to have occurred.
In the months before her death, Bland had become a vocal proponent of and participant in Black Lives Matter and similar protest movements. Her death quickly became a touchstone for protesters, who attacked the gaps in the police’s account.
Despite Encinia’s still-pending perjury charge for his account of the incident (and subsequent dismissal from the force), a grand jury declined to indict anyone in connection to Bland’s death. Kelley claims that when he expressed a desire to testify before that grand jury, Assistant District Attorney Warren Diepraam dissuaded him. “He told me it wouldn’t be good for my career,” Kelley says. When the officer indicated he might speak to the Bland family attorney, Diepraam’s tone reportedly changed: “He told me I was going to be ‘beneath the jail.’”
Waller County District Attorney Elton Mathis has denied Kelley’s claims. “I unequivocally state that he never approached me, my first assistant, or any member of my staff with any such information,” Mathis says. “His job was never threatened by me or my staff.”
Diepraam, the assistant DA who Kelley claimed threatened him, has said that the officer is untrustworthy. Earlier this year, Kelley was suspended and indicted after being caught on video using his Taser on Jonathan Miller, a black Prairie View city councilman, last October.
Bland’s mother, Geneva Reed-Veal, has filed a federal wrongful death lawsuit against the county, and a jury trial is scheduled for January. Reed-Veal spoke at this week’s Democratic National Convention as part of a segment dedicated to “Mothers of the Movement,” a collection of black mothers who lost children to violent crimes.
(via ABC News, Dallas Morning News & Huffington Post)