A police officer who witnessed Sandra Bland’s traffic stop said the Waller County district attorney would not let him testify before a grand jury about facts favorable to Bland, a community activist and former Waller County justice of the peace said Tuesday.
The officer – whose comments over the telephone with activist DeWayne Charleston were recorded – said an official with the district attorney’s office then threatened to retaliate against him if he went public with his story.
“This is what happens when you try to cross the thin blue line,” Charleston said.
Waller County District Attorney Elton Mathis responded to the allegations of retaliation Tuesday afternoon, saying the allegations were “fictional accounts.”
“I unequivocally state that he never approached me, my first assistant, or any member of my staff with any such information,” Mathis said in a written statement emailed to the Chronicle. “His job was never threatened by me or my staff, and I barely knew who he was before he was indicted.”
He continued, “These matters will ultimately be decided by judges/juries in the state and federal courts, and we anxiously look forward to resolutions and the truth being presented in the courts of law, not the tabloids, and not at the behest of those that seek to profit financially or personally off of Ms. Bland’s death.”
Charleston said the audio recording released Tuesday was made earlier this year.
Bland, 28, died three days after being booked at the county jail for allegedly assaulting an officer. Her death was ruled a suicide, and spurred outrage from civil rights activists concerned with police treatment of African-Americans.
Charleston has been active in the protests surrounding Bland’s death, and was sentenced to 12 days in jail for trespassing after he refused to leave the jail lobby during a protest. In 2003, Charleston became the first black person elected in Waller County as justice of the peace but in 2010 he pleaded guilty in federal court to involvement in a conspiracy involving payment of $14,500 in contractor bribes. He received five years probation and a $2,000 fine.
On Tuesday, outside the federal courthouse in Houston, Charleston said that Prairie View Police Officer Michael Kelley told him in a recorded conversation that heard he Texas Department of Public Safety Trooper Brian Encinia say after he already detained Bland that he still hadn’t decided what charge he would book her on.
Encinia, who has since been fired from the department, faces a criminal charge of perjury for allegedly lying about what occurred.
“He says Brian Encinia made sure he was not in ear shot of the car. He turned off his own microphone so no one would hear. And then he called his supervisor. He said, ‘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,'” Charleston said Monday.
Kelley says on the recording he tried to share what he’d heard with an official at the district attorney’s office.
“I wanted to testify on Sandra Bland’s behalf and they told me if I said anything they’re going to come after me,” he said in the recording.
“He [Kelly] told me a lot of stuff,” Charleston explained, “but the most important is this bit about him being on the scene and making a request to testify and being denied.”
In addition, Kelly apparently told Charleston in the audio that a written statement he submitted to the Prairie View police chief never made it into the official DPS report about Bland’s traffic stop for changing lanes without signaling.
Charleston said Kelley said on the recording that he offered to testify but that the Waller County District Attorney did not call him.
Kelley has been indicted on charge of misdemeanor official oppression related to an incident in which he used a Taser on a Prairie View city council member who allegedly did not follow police orders. The councilman was also charged with resisting arrest but the grand jury declined to indict him.
Mathis said in the written statement that the allegations are “an attempt to divert attention away from the crime committed against Councilman Miller and to cash in on the media attention and sad circumstances surrounding Ms. Bland’s death last year for which we all still mourn.”
“These matters will ultimately be decided by judges/juries in the state and federal courts,…”
In other words… the jEWS!!!