Ben Norton, an indie journalist, was the first person I've seen breaking down how the video was edited: http://bennorton.com/dashcam-video-of-violent-arrest-of-sandra-bland-was-edited/ They also didn't release the full footage of her time in jail, -only the "moment where she was discovered" hanging in her cell. I don't believe in the death penalty but I'm nearing the point where I feel it should be enacted in limited fashion, only used against employees of local or federal government that commit murder.
Could be. A cop friend of mine once told me that you can find a reason to pull pretty much anyone over. People are typically bad drivers and will miss important things. I can definitely confirm that something like half of drivers I see don't actually use their blinkers at all. Follow somebody for a little while and they'll roll through a stop sign or turn without a blinker or screw up right of way at an intersection. I know sometimes cops will some times react if you look at them like you're afraid of them or you have an issue with them. Given the whole not putting out her cigarette thing, maybe she scowled at him or something. Not to say that's justifiable, but it could be he assumed that because she doesn't like cops he can find some drugs or something. Or, you know, he's just racist.
In some jurisdictions you must signal a turn 10 seconds before you make a lane change. The Idaho cops pick of Oregonians left and right every time there is a music festival out there. Of course the pull over is just there to create a pretense for a drug search.
Its only now that people are starting to acknowledge the inherently racist roots that still have influence in America, all the way back, starting from slavery, this country has exploited blacks and has implanted a systemic deconstruction of their identity, and because it is systemic shows us that the majority of people know that it is real, but don't do anything about it. Or until now
Well before the internet there wasn't a hell of a lot you could do about it. I mean, you knew that cops were not stereotypically very nice to black people, but we didn't have all this documentation. That has a big impact. It sort of forces the conversation. And, again, the internet makes the country small enough that we can actually start to have that sort of conversation.
Right on. Totally ignored that train of thought