The confrontation between black motorist Sandra Bland and Texas State Trooper Brian Encinia continued to worsen.
Encinia: If you would’ve just listened.
Bland: I was trying to sign the fucking ticket — whatever.
Encinia: Stop moving!
Bland: Are you fucking serious?
Encinia: Stop moving!
Bland: Oh I can’t wait ’til we go to court. Ooh I can’t wait. I cannot wait ’til we go to court. I can’t wait. Oh I can’t wait! You want me to sit down now?
Encinia: No.
Bland: Or are you going to throw me to the floor? That would make you feel better about yourself?
[Bland continues to attack Encinia’s masculinity–almost as if she’s daring him to rough her up. If he wasn’t thinking of throwing her to the floor, she just gave him the idea.]
Sandra Bland voicemail from jail
Encinia: Knock it off!
Bland: Nah that would make you feel better about yourself. That would make you feel real good wouldn’t it? Pussy ass. Fucking pussy. For a failure to signal you’re doing all of this. In little ass Praire View, Texas. My God they must have …
[Niccolo Machiavelli, in his masterwork, The Discourses, offers this cautionary advice: “I hold it to be a proof of great prudence for men to abstain from threats and insulting words toward any one, for neither the one or the other in any way diminishes the strength of the enemy.
[“(Contempt) make(s) him more cautious, and (insults) increase his hatred of you, and make him more persevering in his efforts to injure you.”
[That’s clearly what happened here.]
Encinia: You were getting a warning, until now you’re going to jail.
Bland: I’m getting a — for what? For what?
Encinia: You can come read.
Bland: I’m getting a warning for what? For what!?
Encinia: Stay right here.
Bland: Well you just pointed me over there! Get your mind right.
Encinia: I said stay over here. Stay over here.
Bland: Ooh I swear on my life, y’all are some pussies. A pussy-ass cop, for a fucking signal you’re gonna take me to jail.
[Again, Bland is essentially daring Encinia–who has total control of her–to physically abuse her. For her own sake, the smart thing to do would be to shut up.]
Encinia (to dispatch, or an officer arriving on scene): I got her in control she’s in some handcuffs.
Bland: For a fucking ticket. What a pussy. What a pussy. You’re about to break my fucking wrist!
Encinia: Stop moving.
Bland: I’m standing still! You keep moving me, goddammit.
Encinia: Stay right here. Stand right there.
Bland: Don’t touch me. Fucking pussy — for a traffic ticket (inaudible).
(door slams)
[Again: More profanity–and yet another challenge to Encinia’s masculinity.]
Sandra Bland was an activist in the Black Lives Matter movement
Encinia: Come read right over here. This right here says ‘a warning.’ You started creating the problems.
Bland: You asked me what was wrong!
Encinia: Do you have anything on your person that’s illegal?
Bland: Do I feel like I have anything on me? This a fucking maxi dress.
Encinia: I’m going to remove your glasses.
Bland: This a maxi dress. (Inaudible) Fucking assholes.
Encinia: Come over here.
Bland: You about to break my wrist. Can you stop? You’re about to fucking break my wrist! Stop!!!
Encinia: Stop now! Stop it! If you would stop resisting.
Female officer: Stop resisting ma’am.
[Even if Bland is not resisting, the testimony of a second officer who says she is could have been used against her in court.]
Bland: (cries) For a fucking traffic ticket, you are such a pussy. You are such a pussy.
[Is Bland referring to Encinia or the female officer? In either case, such language will do her no good–on the street or in court.]
Female officer: No, you are. You should not be fighting.
Encinia: Get on the ground!
Bland: For a traffic signal!
Encinia: You are yanking around, when you pull away from me, you’re resisting arrest.
Bland: Don’t it make you feel real good don’t it? A female for a traffic ticket. Don’t it make you feel good Officer Encinia? You’re a real man now. You just slammed me, knocked my head into the ground. I got epilepsy, you motherfucker.
[By stating she is epileptic, Bland has notified both officers that she could be in danger of a potentially lethal seizure at any moment. The smart move for the police would have been to rush her to a hospital for an emergency checkup. But they don’t even talk about doing this.]
Encinia: Good. Good.
Bland: Good? Good?
Female officer: You should have thought about it before you started resisting.
[The female officer has just confimed–perhaps unintentionally–that her partner slammed Bland’s head into the ground. She has also demonstrated her own indifference to Bland’s having received a potentially life-threatening injury.]
Bland: Make you feel real good for a female. Y’all strong, y’all real strong.
Encinia: I want you to wait right here.
Bland: I can’t go anywhere with your fucking knee in my back, duh!
Encinia: (to bystander): You need to leave! You need to leave!
[Although the bystander is not interfering in any way with the arrest, Encinia clearly does not want a non-cop witness to his treatment of Bland.]
