a little bit about sandra bland and waller county:

[niyad]

. . .


Sandra Bland

Bland was from Naperville, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, and one of five sisters. Bland attended Prairie View A&M University outside Hempstead, Waller County in Texas for her undergraduate education.[4] At Prairie View, Bland was recruited as a summer counselor for three years, played in a band, and volunteered for a senior citizens advocacy group.[4]

Bland returned to Illinois in 2009, and in January 2015 began posting videos about many subjects, including police brutality against blacks.[4] In one post Bland wrote, "In the news that we’ve seen as of late, you could stand there, surrender to the cops, and still be killed."[5] Bland has been described as a civil rights activist in Chicago, and a part of the Black Lives Matter campaign.[6][7] In July Bland, now 28 years old, came back to Hempstead seeking a job at Prairie View A&M University.[1][6] She had reportedly secured a job at the University.[8]

One of Waller County's first western settlements was a slave plantation, though the county was also a magnet for free Blacks in the South prior to the Mexican-American War.[8] Both the Freedmen's Bureau and the Ku Klux Klan established offices in Hempstead, Waller County during the Reconstruction Era. Between 1877 and 1950, Waller County had more lynchings than any other county in Texas.[8]

Waller County stops and gives citations to black people at a rate below their share of the population, unlike many other places in the United States.[8] However, the county still suffers from racial tensions. According to The Atlantic, in 2004 Waller County district attorney Oliver Kitzman resigned when students at Prairie View A&M, a historically black college, won the right to vote in the county; Kitzman had defied Supreme Court precedent and threatened to prosecute any student attempting to vote.[8] Voting rights for students at Prairie view were unsuccessfully challenged again in 2008, when federal judges ordered that the county justify all rejected voter registration for a period of four years.[8]

In 2007, Hempstead police chief Glenn Smith was suspended for police brutality during an arrest, and then fired following further allegations of misconduct.[8] Smith then ran for county sheriff and won; he now serves as Waller County's sheriff and oversees the Waller County jail.[8]

. . . .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Sandra_Bland

[PatrickforO]

1. So what's the plan moving forward? How will we organize to stop shit like this from happening?

[kelliekat44]

5. Organize to train voters to VOTE in ALL state and LOCAL elections. That's how!

You wouldn't have to put up with a Sheriff or AG or cops like this if folks would just get out and VOTE in ALL elections. And if voters had really good, researched information about the candidates from dog-catcher, school boards, councils, judges etc.

[PatrickforO]

6. So a two pronged approach:

1. Pressure at all levels to end voter suppression laws (social justice leading to economic justice), and

2. Educate voters, which begins by grass roots efforts of sane people to get school boards to ditch the religio-crazy ideology and begin forcing a good, solid civics curriculum (social justice leading to economic justice)

A good start. We can also pressure national politicians to support efforts to a) end giving surplus military equipment to police departments (they NEVER need tanks!), b) install body cams on all cops, c) change training policy for law enforcement to go back to 'serve and protect' instead of 'stomp them until they totally submit,' d) tie needed federal funding for highways and other projects to the ABSENCE of egregious police misconduct, e) de-privatize prisons and end the drug war, and f) elect politicians who have the GUTS to impose reasonable gun controls, particularly in urban areas and then HAVE THEIR BACKS to prevent vomitous recalls like the shameful one that happened in Colorado.

This is going to be a heavy lift.

The alternative is oligarchy leading to anarchy, so we'd better do it.

[Anansi1171]

2. Thanks Niyad for posting this.

Sheriff R. Glenn Smith
Brian Encinia
DA Matthis

Chickens coming home to roost!

[niyad]

3. may they receive everything they deserve.

[marble falls]

4. I'm white, male, longhaired, with family in Katy and I know better than to stop in Hempstead....

that place is stuck in the 1850's.

I'm also 64, ex-Navy and own my own business. Waller Country is a scary place.

[niyad]

7. definitely not a place I ever intend to visit, even at my advanced age.

[Uncle Joe]

8. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, niyad.

[niyad]

9. you are most welcome.