LYING SHAME
Texas trooper fired after being charged with perjury in Sandra Bland case
HEMPSTEAD, Texas — A Texas state trooper who arrested Sandra Bland after a contentious traffic stop last summer was fired Wednesday after being charged with perjury for allegedly lying about his confrontation with the black woman who died three days later in jail.
But Sandra Bland’s family said Wednesday night that’s not good enough.
Trooper Brian Encinia claimed in an affidavit that Bland was “combative and uncooperative” after he pulled her over and ordered her out of her car. The grand jury identified that affidavit in charging Encinia with perjury, special prosecutor Shawn McDonald said Wednesday night.
Hours after the indictment, the Texas Department of Public Safety said it would “begin termination proceedings” against Encinia, who has been on paid desk duty since Bland was found dead in her cell.
Bland’s arrest and death — which authorities ruled a suicide — provoked national outrage and drew the attention of the Black Lives Matter movement. Protesters linked Bland to other black suspects who were killed in confrontations with police or died in police custody, including Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Freddie Gray in Baltimore.
Video of the stop shows Encinia drawing his stun gun and telling Bland, “I will light you up!” She can later be heard off-camera screaming that he’s about to break her wrists and complaining that he knocked her head into the ground.
Encinia’s affidavit stated he “removed her from her vehicle to further conduct a safer traffic investigation,” but grand jurors “found that statement to be false,” said McDonald, one of five special prosecutors appointed to investigate.
She was taken to the Waller County jail in Hempstead, about 50 miles northwest of Houston. Three days later, she was found hanging from a jail cell partition with a plastic garbage bag around her neck. The grand jury has already declined to charge any sheriff’s officials or jailers in her death.
The perjury charge is a misde- meanor that carries a maximum of one year in jail and a $4,000 fine. Encinia was not immediately taken into custody, and an arraignment date has not yet been announced. Encinia could not immediately be reached for comment; a cellphone number for him was no longer working. The Bland family says the misdemeanor charge further supports their continuing call for a Justice Department investigation into the July 10 arrest and jailing.
“There’s a conflict and a mix of emotions that we have, because what the Grand Jury did today was reinforce what we as a family, and I would also say a large part of the American population, especially those that have followed this case very closely, have long felt for the last 5 ½ months,” Bland’s older sister, Sharon Cooper, told the Chicago Sun-Times.
“The acknowledgement by the Grand Jury that [Encinia] actually lied in the documentation that he provided is welcomed. But by the same notion, a perjury indictment is just too soft for the very offensive crime that he committed,” Cooper continued.
Cannon Lambert, an attorney for the family, said Encinia should have also been indicted for assault, battery or abuse of his official power. The perjury charge, amisdemeanor, is “an insult,” Lambert told the Sun-Times.