It’s interesting how the police encourage civilians to “snitch” whenever something happens but when it comes to themselves they are tight lipped.
The Houston Chronicle report, Michael Kelley, an officer who witnessed Sandra Bland’s traffic stop was threatened into silence by the DA’s office for wanting to testify on her behalf.
Community activist and former county judge DeWayne Charleston had a conversation with Michael Kelley earlier in the year and recorded it.
From the recordings, Michael Kelley says,
“I wanted to testify on Sandra Bland’s behalf and they told me if I said anything they’re going to come after me”
Kelley also said he heard the arresting officer, Brian Encima say,
“I have no idea what I’m going to arrest her for, but we’ll figure it out when we get to the county jail.”
Here we have an officer wanting to do the right thing, who made a request to testify but was denied by the district attorney’s office.
Waller County District Attorney Elton Mathis responded to the allegations of retaliation, saying the allegations were “fictional accounts.”
There are cops who want to do and say something but they’ll have a huge target on their back and they don’t want to go through that. People assume it’s easy for other officers to call each other out but there’s a reason why they don’t. Yes, some officers don’t see anything wrong but others do and they know it’s wrong but they also know what police culture is like and they don’t want to deal with the consequences.