A dangerous power trip

The arrest and resultant death of Sandra Bland in Texas after a petty traffic stop has justifiably caught the imagination of the American public. The video of this young woman’s treatment at the hands of police — by all indications for failing to be verbally submissive — is terrifying. National reporters are shocked, and wondering just how something like this could happen in the good old USA.

But those of us who follow these stories all the time know very well that this sort of altercation happens every day in America and often results in tasering, physical violence and worse, as police officers demand total deference in both word and deed in their presence. When citizens attempt to assert their rights, argue with officers or demand justification for being taken into custody, cops move to immediately establish their dominance and often physically force the citizen to comply, regardless of the pettiness of the alleged crime.

Here’s a little reminder of what cops, and many fellow Americans (until it happens to them), believe citizens should do when a police officer is present:

That’s from an op-ed by a former police officer and current criminal justice professor by the name of Sunil Dutta. His argument is, of course, complete nonsense. Yes, on a practical level, knowing what we know about how police behave in this country, one would be wise to just try to get out of any dealings with a cop alive. Here’s a stop that ended with the police breaking a window and tasering a black male passenger inside the car while his kids screamed in the backseat. Here’s one in which the police thought a bike-riding black man (who happened to be a firefighter) was “throwing signs” at them. (He was just waving hello.) In the end, he got lucky. They only threatened to taser him.

But I sure hope all those nice white conservatives who back this police behavior don’t have the misapprehension that the same thing couldn’t happen to them. This stop ended in violence between a police officer and a young white dad who was just disputing what the sign on the highway said. Here’s one with an elderly white woman who mouthed off to the cop when he stopped her for speeding. This one has disturbing parallels with the recent Walter Scott murder in South Carolina — a police officer shot a taser in the back of a handcuffed suspect who was fleeing the scene. As with most taser victims, she went down very hard and later died from the head injuries.