Your daughter is thrilled. She just got her first job after college, and it’s right up her alley!
She went out of state to get her bachelor’s degree. She graduated several months ago, and came back home to live with you, while she sorted out her next move. She is idealistic and intelligent, and goes to church every Sunday. She does not pass judgment on others who don’t share her faith, but she is candid and forthright in speaking up for the God she loves.
Your daughter is no angel. She has had a child out of wedlock. She is high-strung, and can be mouthy and even profane (a bad habit she is trying to quit), but she has been searching her soul, and feels convinced that she is called to help young people make the most of their lives. Up to now, though, she has not been able to get her career started. But finally, the waiting is over. She went back to her out-of-state alma mater, to interview for a job that is right in line with her calling, and they just told her she has been hired!
It is late in the afternoon, and she wants to get the paperwork filled out and turned in tomorrow, so she can start to work on Monday. But first, she needs a few groceries.
She leaves the campus and heads for Walmart, carefully observing the speed limit. She notices a police car gaining on her rapidly. Neither the lights nor the siren are on, but the patrolman is definitely speeding, so your daughter deduces that the officer is in a hurry. She is currently on a two-lane road, but it soon widens to four lanes, and when it does, she immediately moves to the right hand lane to get out of the policeman’s way.
To her dismay, the policeman activates his lights and siren, and pulls her over. He says he has stopped her for failure to signal her lane change. (I don’t know about you, but I have changed lanes without signaling hundreds of times, and have never been pulled over for it.) Your daughter is understandably annoyed, and is sullen and taciturn. After a few preliminaries, as he is preparing to write her a ticket, the officer says, “You seem irritated.”
She calmly explains that yes, she is irritated, because she was pulling over to get out of his way, since he seemed to be in a hurry. The officer says contemptuously, “Are you done?”
As he continues writing the ticket, he asks your daughter to put out her cigarette. She is under no legal obligation to do so. She refuses, without raising her voice.
The policeman immediately loses his cool, for reasons known only to him, and orders her out of the car. She refuses to get out of the car, saying, “I am not under arrest.”
The officer says, “You ARE under arrest!”
She asks, “On what charge?”
He refuses to answer, but instead repeats “YOU ARE UNDER ARREST,” louder and louder, and also repeats his demand that she get out of the car, louder and louder. He jerks the door open, continuing to shout his demands. He tries to forcibly unfasten your daughter’s seat belt so he can drag her out of the car. She resists.
Frustrated, the policeman pulls his taser and points it directly at your daughter’s head, shouting, “I WILL LIGHT YOU UP!”
Not wanting to be tased, your daughter quietly gets out of the car. She is arrested. The charge against her is “assaulting a police officer.” Yet at the time he told her she was under arrest, she clearly had not assaulted him. She had been seated in her car the entire time. This is clearly a false and wrongful arrest, carried out with complete disregard for her rights as a U.S. citizen.
Three days later, your daughter is found dead in her jail cell. The county coroner rules her death a suicide. This seems suspicious to you, because your daughter had so much faith, and so much to live for.
What would you do? Would you meekly accept the official story, or would you do all in your power to find out all the facts surrounding your daughter’s death?
Sandra Bland died in the Waller County jail one year ago Wednesday. Maybe it was a suicide, maybe it wasn’t. Her mother has not called for an armed revolution against the police. All she wants is a full and fair accounting for what happened to her daughter in prison. A year later, she is still waiting.
Phil Jones is a local columnist who makes his living teaching math to kids with “learning disabilities”, especially dyslexia and ADHD. He writes original songs through the nonprofit Sunrise Ministries.
djones2032@austin.rr.com