Aram Zucker-Scharff

odinsblog:

Sandra Bland was stopped Friday by authorities in Waller County, Texas for a traffic violation. In a video of her arrest, while being forcibly held face down, Ms. Bland can clearly be heard saying to the officer, “You just slammed my head into the ground. Do you not even care about that?” As she’s being picked up off the ground and placed into the police vehicle, Ms. Bland can be heard again, this time thanking the person recording the video, saying, “Thank you for recording.” 

Bland was arrested and booked on
“assault of a public servant” charges.

A police statement says the following Monday morning Ms. Bland was released on a $5,000 bond, and was subsequently “found dead” by a female jailer who was “worried” about her recreation time.

Waller County Sheriff Glenn Smith claims this was a case of self-inflicted asphyxiation. An autopsy performed Tuesday showed Bland’s death “has been classified as a suicide, with the cause of death (listed as) hanging,” according to Tricia Bentley, a spokeswoman for the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences in Houston.

Hanged. Suicide. A young 28-year old woman who was moving to Texas to begin working her dream job suddenly decided to commit suicide, supposedly because of a small traffic infraction? 

Ms. Bland’s friends and family feel that the police’s story doesn’t add up. For one thing, the odd quickness with which everything seemed to escalate seems off. In a matter of 72 hours Bland went from being pulled over for a minor traffic violation, to being arrested for assaulting a cop, and then to killing herself, according to the police’s story. There’s also the fact that Bland is black, and Waller county has a history of discriminatory law enforcement behavior.

The police are lying again. 

#WhatHappenedToSandyBland

#JusticeForSandy #ALLBlackLivesMatter

New Texas Schoolbooks: Moses Wrote The Constitution For Slavery, Segregation:

Well here’s a heck of a surprise! You may remember how Texas re-wrote its standards for history books back in 2010, to make sure that kids learned the important parts of history, like who Phyllis …

Remember kids, there’s no such thing as the separation between church and state, affirmative action causes alien invasions, and Christianity was super helpful for those poor American Indians.

inothernews:

A mushroom cloud rises in the distance following an explosion at a fertilizer plant in the town of West, Texas, on Wednesday.  From the Dallas Morning News:

A massive explosion at a fertilizer plant rocked the town of West, north of Waco, causing multiple injuries and leaving people trapped and buildings on fire.

Firefighters were reported among those injured during the explosion, which occurred before 8 p.m. at West Fertilizer Inc., just off Interstate 35, about 80 miles south of Dallas.

Authorities were asking residents of the town to evacuate, and there were reports of dozens of people injured, including residents of a nearby nursing home. A fire had broken out earlier at the fertilizer plant, and the explosion occurred while firefighters were trying to put it out.

“It was a small fire and then water got sprayed the ammonia nitrate, and it exploded just like the Oklahoma City bomb,” said Jason Shelton, a clerk at the Czech Best Western Hotel in West. “I live about a thousand feet from it and it blew my screen door off and my back windows. There’s houses leveled that were right next to it. We’ve got people injured and possibly dead.”

Numerous buildings were reported to be on fire, including West Middle School and a nearby nursing home. A dispatcher calling for multiple ambulances said, “We do have a lot of injured here.”

Department of Public Safety troopers were taking some victims to hospitals in Waco, which is about 20 miles south of West. Bill Bohannan, who told the Waco Tribune-Herald he witnessed the devastating blast of the explsion while visiting his parents.“Every house within about four blocks is blown apart,” he said.

Warning, very loud, very alarming. The explosion earlier today at a Fertilizer Plant in Waco, Texas.

BBC Reports.

Warning: To my knowledge this video is unverified. It appears to have been run on a FOX affiliate.