getting beat up and mishandled because there are no laws or rights at the time of pullover or when the cop walks up on you! (Which is the reason for this SandraBlandLaw© and SandraBlandRights©)
Obviously, in considering how the police v. civilian climate is today, especially for people of color…(or people in a hurry, or people who are agitated already, or people who are simply people being human)….
We don’t want:
- your bright lights shining on us
- the visual of you coming from your cop car and approaching us
- to hear the sound of your keys jingling
- to hear your police radio and walkie-talkie
- the sight of your elbows bent outward: one hand clutching a Taser and baton and the other hand clutching your gun
- we don’t want to hear your voice
- we don’t want to hear your question “do you know why I pulled you over?”
- we don’t want you asking us “how are you?
- we don’t want you asking us “what’s going on?”
- we don’t want to answer any questions
We just want:
- to hand you our license and registration, run us through, then have you go away and off in the world fighting active criminals and the lions and tigers and bears of life. But ‘Oh my’—please get out of our faces with condescending questions (that you know from jump when can debate or win with)
…that:
- ultimately leads to physical altercations, jail house visits (and as were seeing) death: right in front of corner stores and on city streets in front of apartment complexes (even to homeless, weak and defenseless people)
Even if a civilian chose the “right to remain silent” (as surrender to accepting whatever ticket coming his/her way) when a cop walks up on him and asks “do you know why I’m pulling you over?” or condescendingly says “that was a sharp lil u-turn ya made over there” etc.-even if the civilian remained quiet (to avoid escalation), 99.9% of cops would consider this silence insubordination of some kind-in the form of resistance. And even if the civilian simply replied: “Ok. I’ll take the ticket sir” very few cops will not take that as ‘sass” or confrontation. That is a VERY subjective decision from cop to cop. And that pivotal moment, typically, is where the spontaneous search and other forms of provoking begins. We are running out of lives and don’t have the time or patience anymore for that kind subjectivity and hope it’s a “good cop.” A law needs to be put in place to ensure objectivity and that-that moment of contact is just, and safe.
…So in walks the SandraBlandLaw© for this very volatile, unpredictable, and proven unsafe point of civilian lives (when in contact with cops).
This law will do all the talking from the moment the civilian is pulled over or approached by a cop after handing over id’s to be checked and cleared.
A civilians simple statement: “I choose to exercise my SandraBland© rights under the SandraBland© Law” will cover specifics set in place to bridge this gap where police officers are habitually handling civilians with excessive force (unnecessarily) and in ways that ultimately, should have been ended at POINT A (had there been a law and rights like such in place!)
HOW THE SANDRA BLAND LAW PROTECTS YOU, WHAT IT COVERS + WHAT YOU HAVE TO AGREE TO DO:
(All of this was written with my being a former Criminal Justice major, experiences of my own, that of other’s police officer run-ins, and my mom’s 911 operator knowledge as, they are trained with the same policing procedures incoming officers have to study. Outside of that, the research that I had to gather in order to make sure this law being passed could be more than a dream, I found and am elated to have discovered that you are actually under arrest the VERY moment you are pulled over….NOT just when the cuffs are on you…Although that is no so good news to hear, for this law I want passed, it CERTAINLY makes it even more passable than I worried it would be.
At any rate, if you read my tweets 7/29, you probably are aware that I’m taking it from here. Thanks for reading and hopefully you learned a lot).
