Ironically, The Tow Truck Driver Towing Sandra Bland's Car Away Seems Not To Signal...

[xocet]

From the Texas Driver's Handbook, it seems that he should have signaled:

What could have prevented the officer from pulling over the tow truck driver?

[safeinOhio]

1. Did the cop

use his turn signal when he pulled her over?

[Fred Sanders]

2. Bland is heard questioning why the cop was also bumper tailing Sandra Bland's car with it's Illinois plates

then she changed lanes to let him by.....then got stopped...no turn signal although the turn was safe to do so.

My interpretation of that part of the tape...what is not in doubt is the cop got angry at being "disrespected" for a request, a request, not a legal police command, to put her cigarette out "please", and the "escalation" was 100% the cops responsibility.

A police request can be ignored, it is a constitutional right.

[xocet]

3. There is absolutely no doubt that the trooper was 110% out of control in escalating the stop...

I have looked at the video multiple times now.

Was the trooper profiling (seeming likely) and fishing for something (seemingly likely)?

If one looks at the very beginning of the video just after the other traffic stop is completed, one seemingly sees Sandra Bland's car run a stop sign(?). (That is no excuse for how the trooper escalated the situation, and it is not even clear that he saw this, but one wonders why he did not use that as a reason for the stop. The not-signaling-a-lane-change reason for the stop is totally bogus given the circumstances of the pursuit.) The trooper is just inching forward at that point. He goes to the intersection, does a U-turn, and punches it up to somewhere between about 25 mph and 29 mph (in a 20 mph zone) to catch up her just as she finishes crossing the intersection of University Dr and 1098. At that point he is the width of 1098 behind her, the light is green: he continues through the intersection. Undoubtedly, she would have seen the fast-moving patrol car behind her (it easily could have been going 10 mph faster than her car which is a readily perceptible difference) and would have moved to get out of the way. Then he pulls her over and claims that it was due to the lack of signaling. The pursuit is over in less than 2000 ft.

Is that what you see in the video? (You can get distances from the video and Google maps, and you can get times from the video.)

What a horrible situation the trooper escalated this into!