Groups want to cut arrests resulting from traffic stops
Move comes after similar provisions stripped from bill named after Bland
AUSTIN — Sandra Bland wasn’t mentioned by name.
But it was clear that her highly publicized death, which helped galvanize the Black Lives Matter movement, was a key part of a hearing Thursday aimed at stopping police from locking up Texans over minor traffic offenses.
More than two years after the 28-year-old Prairie View A&M graduate died after being pulled over for a traffic violation that led to her arrest, criminal justice reform advocates showed up in force at the Department of Public Safety’s headquarters in Austin.
After failing to make much progress with the Texas Legislature on the topic earlier this year, those groups think they have found a seldom-used bureaucratic procedure to force DPS to consider changing its rules for officers to assure they are not locking up people too quickly for minor traffic offenses.
“We believe there is a need to clarify the point at which an officer can move to arrest a person at a traffic stop,” Kathy Mitchell of the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition told the five-member Public Safety Commission, which oversees the DPS.
Mitchell acknowledged that, constitutionally, officers have discretion to arrest a person for a traffic violation in Texas. But that doesn’t make it good policy, she said. And she said her group’s research shows it happening far more often than it should in places like Houston.
To clamp down on the practice, Just Liberty, another criminal justice reform advocacy group that spoke at the hearing, has taken the rare step of trying to petition the Public Safety Commission to change rules for traffic stops that turn into arrests. Among those to sign that petition is Geneva ReedVeal, the mother of Sandra Bland who has become a national advocate against alleged police brutality.
Typically, DPS sets its own policies to guide officers. But there is a provision in Texas law that allows the commission to consider a petition from the public that sets rules when it is “necessary for carrying out the department’s work.”
But Texas Highway Patrol Chief Lt. Col. Ron Joy told the Houston Chronicle after Mitchell’s comments were made at the meeting that DPS already has clear rules that limit instances in which a person can be arrested for a traffic stop.
He said it is not common and not in his agency’s interest to tie up troopers for hours making arrests on minor traffic violations. He said what happened in Bland’s case was “misconduct” by a trooper who did not follow current guidelines. That trooper, Brian Encinia, was later fired by DPS after he was indicted on perjury charges.
No action taken
Whether the petition presented Thursday moves forward beyond the initial stages is still a big question. The Public Safety Commission took no official action on the request after listening to testimony. DPS officials say they will respond to the request in writing within 60 days but did not tip their hand as to whether they will adopt the rule change or reject it outright.
Bland was pulled over for failing to change lanes without signaling in July 2015. After Bland refused to put out a cigarette and get out of her car, she was arrested after a struggle with Encinia and booked into the Waller County Jail. Days later, she was found dead in her cell. The death was ruled a suicide, and it was later revealed that Bland had a history of mental health issues and may have suffered from depression.
Mitchell said she trusts the highway patrol doesn’t want to arrest people for minor offenses but that the current DPS rules are not clear enough to prevent what happened to Bland. And it happens more frequently than that. She said her group looked at two months of bookings into the Harris County jail in 2016 and found that 11 percent were people arrested on a charge related to a traffic violation.
A spokesman for the Harris County Sheriff ’s Office could not speak to the validity of Mitchell’s numbers but stressed that the jail population has been in decline since Sheriff Ed Gonzalez was elected in 2016. The jail population has dropped from 9,000 to about 8,300 as the sheriff has stressed reforms to keep people from being locked up for minor offenses.
Though the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition didn’t identify the arresting agency in those bookings in Harris County, Mitchell said the data shows that law enforcement needs refined rules. By changing the rules at DPS, she said it could set a standard for other local law enforcement to follow to assure people are not losing their freedom over not using a turn signal or speeding.
GOP group backs rule
The Texas Young Republican Federation is among the groups pushing for the same reforms and has signed onto the Just Liberty petition. Jason Vaughn of the Texas Young Republicans and a Round Rock resident, said at the Thursday hearing that groups like his believe government should always be careful before taking someone’s liberty away — even if for a brief time.
PSC Chairman Steven Mach, of Houston, made clear in questioning Mitchell that there are two sides to why traffic issues turn into something more and stressed the role of people pulled over potentially escalating the situation.
“We’ve made great strides in terms of having the public be informed about the importance of cooperation and courtesy for police who are just trying to do their job,” Mach said after listening to Mitchell and six others who testified for the rule change.
Mach also questioned why the groups are not pushing the Legislature to make the change instead of pushing a rule change that would just affect DPS. Advocates have tried to pass changes to state law, but have so far failed.
Originally the ideas were part of a bill named after Bland, but those provisions were stripped out of the legislation before the Sandra Bland Act was passed and signed into law. That legislation now focuses on requiring jail staff to immediately determine if an inmate suffers from mental illness and divert that person to a mental health facility.