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#BlacLivesMatter, Brian Encinia, Eckhart Tolle, gail o'neill, painbody, police brutality, Prairie View A&M University, Sandra Bland, Steve McCraw, suicide, Texas, traffic stop, violence, Waller County
We will probably never know what prompted Brian Encinia to make a U-turn on a four-lane road in Waller County Texas and follow a car with Illinois plates, but we will never forget what happened next.
After both vehicles came to a stop, Encinia– a 30-year-old Texas trooper who joined the Texas Department of Public Safety about 18 months ago– approached the passenger side of 28-year old Sandra Bland’s car, peered into the window and began:
“Hello, ma’am.”
“Hi.”
“The reason for your stop is you failed to signal a lane change. Got your driver’s license and insurance with you?”
Bland– an alumae of Prairie View A&M University who’d just relocated from Chicago to to start a new job at her alma mater– had merged from the left to right lane of traffic, then onto the shoulder of the roadway (presumably because she realized she was being followed by a marked car with flashing lights) without having turned on her indicator light. If she responded to Encinia’s question, it was inaudible.
Encinia proceeds: “What’s wrong?”
Again, few seconds of silence pass before he asks: “How long have you been in Texas?”
Bland replies that she’d arrived the day before, and Encinia asks her to “give me a few minutes,” as he returns to his car. Several minutes pass before Encinia approaches the driver’s side of Bland’s car and asks, “You OK?”
Bland does little to mask the aggravation in her voice as she responds, “I’m waiting on you, this is your job.”
“You seem very irritated.”
“I am. I really I am. I don’t know what I’m getting a ticket for, you were speeding up, tailing me, I move over and you stop me. So, yeah I am a little irritated, but that doesn’t stop you from giving me a ticket, so give me a ticket.”
“Are you done?”
“You asked me what was wrong and I told you, so now I’m done, yeah.”
Encinia asks Bland to put out her cigarette and she replies, “I’m in my car, why do I have to put out my cigarette?”
“Well, you can step out of the car now.” This time, Encinia’s command is terse. The stakes have been raised.
“I don’t have to step out.”
“Step out of the car. Step out of the car!”
“I’m getting removed for a failure to signal?”
“I’m giving you a lawful order.”
When Bland states that she is going to call her lawyer– an already fraught exchange escalates. Encinia threatens, “I’m going to yank you out of here!”
“Oh, you’re going to yank me out of my car? OK.”
The two argue back and forth, Encinia calls for backup, and demands that Bland, “Get out of the car!,” as he draws what appears to be a Taser, yelling “I will light you up!”
Bland exits her car, and the argument grows more heated as the two move out of camera range.
The audio that follows gets even uglier. Encinia finds himself on the receiving end of a string of expletives. There is a scuffle. At one point, Bland cries out “You just slammed me, knocked my head into the ground… I got epilepsy!” To which Encinia replies, “Good.”
Things go downhill from there.
Bland was arrested and jailed while friends and family scrambled to satisfy her $5,000 bond. Three days later, she was found dead in her cell from an apparent suicide by hanging. (In response to supporters calling for a Justice Department investigation, the Waller County district attorney, Elton Mathis, said in an interview, “Once the entire investigation comes in, it will be reviewed for potential criminal liability on behalf of the trooper, if any.”)
Trooper Encinia now claims he placed Bland in handcuffs because he feared for his own safety. “Bland began swinging her elbows at me and then kicked my right leg in the shin,” reads the arrest affidavit. “I had a pain in my right leg and suffered small cuts on my right hand.”
What Encinia failed to record in his retelling of the facts, however, was that he’d pulled a stun gun on Bland. He also neglected to document her repeated questions re: why she was being apprehended, and why she had to get out of her car.
Authorities rely on affidavits to determine if there is probable cause for arrest, but the glaring holes in Encinia’s recollections undermined his credibility. After a preliminary investigation found he’d violated the Texas Department of Public Safety’s traffic stop and courtesy procedures during the stop, which was for an improper lane change, Encinia was put on administrative leave.
“Regardless of the situation, the DPS state trooper has an obligation to exhibit professionalism and be courteous,” DPS Director Steve McCraw told the Washington Post. “That did not happen in this situation.”
Speculation about Bland’s mental state have already begun to swirl– as have what the results of her autopsy and toxicology report might reveal to authorities.
But as pundits from mass media to social media debate the state of affairs between white police officers and unarmed African Americans who have been victimized by those sworn to protect and serve the public– it’s time we consider what Eckhart Tolle calls painbody.
Tolle, a spiritual teacher and author, believes that when we experience an emotional trauma that “is not fully faced and dealt with in the moment it arose,” the negativity manifests as energy that lives within our bodies. Over time, a series of these energy fields can accumulate– resulting in a painbody.
Like any energy force, a painbody will not only feed on experiences that resonates with its own kind of energy, but it will create a situation in your life that reflects back its own energy frequency for it to feed on. “Once the pain body has taken you over,” warns Tolle, “YOU WANT MORE PAIN, you become a victim or perpetrator.”
Anger, destructiveness, hatred, resentment, grief, emotional drama, violence and even illness are common triggers.
Based on a YouTube video that Bland recorded just six days before her arrest, in which she speaks out about #BlackLivesMatter, it’s probably safe to say that her painbody might have been triggered by injustice, abuse of authority and racism.
How else to explain the paradox of her collaborating in a vortex of violence and toxicity that ended in her arrest– all the while knowing how easily her life could be taken by Trooper Encinia. Why was she so reckless when her very survival was on the line? Why didn’t Bland behave as if her life mattered when dealing with somebody who was obviously armed, dangerous and demonstrating nothing but ill-will, a pathological need to dominate and firepower?
And what of Encinia?
What triggered him to follow Bland on a quiet road in the first place? Why ticket her for circumstances that he knew were precipitated by his actions? Why, as a trained professional, was his ability to de-escalate the situation so lacking? Why didn’t he answer Bland’s questions as stipulated by his code of conduct? Why did his line of questioning sound more like a provocation than inquiry? And why did law enforcement look like bullying in his hands?
We will probably never know what forces caused Encinia’s and Bland’s painbodies to collide on July 10, but until we recognize ourselves in them– their demise will be be indecipherable from our own.
The Gaily Planet 
Gail – I am so glad that you wrote about this. Painbodies or not, Encinia did not behave professionally or morally. It just makes me more afraid of the police and the power they can exert over you, especially to an armed woman. Maybe Sandra did not behave politely but I was unaware that constitutes a crime. So sad – Rita
Rita,
Thanks for your response.
My first-hand experience with a police officer in Santa Monica about eight years ago (who stopped me for talking on my cell phone while crossing the street), taught me everything I know about dealing with a sadist who lacks self-control. I was so worried for my life, that I would not break eye contact with the officer to glance at his name tag, for fear that he would read this as a provocation to act out his hyper-aggressive, violent impulses on my body.
Of course, we all respond differently to different stimuli. My response in Santa Monica was to be polite to the point of being obsequious, because I knew I was in no position to fight (never mind conquer) an animal with a gun. This did not mitigate his aggression– at one point he took my deference to his authority as disrespect and asked if I was trying to “mock” him– but I lived to tell the tale.
There is a proverb that says: “Never argue with a fool, lest a stranger walk by and mistake one of you for the other.”
I am convinced the ONLY way to respond to anyone who is drunk on power is with cooperation. There is too much to risk by getting into pissing contests with the police… as history proves.
Gail
Didn’t know about this story. Frightening. Good work.
their demise will be be indecipherable from our own.
> > > > Gail, > > It was only yesterday I began to listen, view and read about this unfortunate, no, deplorable incident. Consequently, when your blog arrived I immediately > read it in the presence of my wife. Thanks for your insights and the factual and unbiased manner in which the story was presented. It’s so thought-provoking. > Based on the video I saw on TV, I fully understand and can readily empathize with Ms. Bland. Owing to our painful history with the law enforcement community, > she was obviously annoyed for being stopped for such a trivial infraction. The situation immediately escalated when the officer asked her to put out her cigarette > and not having obeyed, the officer felt he and his authority was being marginalized and disrespected. > > Oftentimes we teach our young people how to survive this type of situation. My point is, do everything within your power to get home safely to your loved ones. > You can never win against the establishment in these confrontations, so try and live to fight another day in the Courts. Naturally my wife doesn’t agree with me. > She would rather resist and die in the moment if she feels her rights are being violated. We do need to dialogue because we all experience ‘painbody’ but need to find > a way to resolve it peacefully. Hey, welcome to ‘our’ world. > > > >
OK, I read what you wrote Gail and now is a white male I am going to comment on my experience and why I believe that this encounter was to be expected and quite honestly deserved.
I was raised to believe that when you are spoken to by a law-enforcement officer the only responses that work on our “yes sir” “yes ma’am”, and that’s it !
You have to understand the type of person that goes into law-enforcement to really understand how they must be effectively treated if you wish to be treated well too.
A few years ago on the way to the U2 concert I was heading from New Jersey into New York got pulled over by a policeman who asked to see my insurance and license of course I said “yes sir’ and gave him the credentials that she had asked for.
When the officer told me that my insurance card had expired, I said is it possible for me to call my insurance agent and have an insurance card faxed to the precinct?
The officer said no, that it was my responsibility to have a current insurance card and he was right and I didn’t have one.
I looked at him and said oh come on with just the slightest bit of attitude and he put me in handcuffs and I was put in a detention sell for 24 hours without any access to a phone, which I found out later is completely legal and at the discretion of an officer.
What I learned from that experience is that because I chose to Express just a little bit of an attitude, I was given the full complement of toxic possibilities allowed by the law for officers to enforce upon me.
Now, I watched the video very very carefully and what I saw was a woman being combative, snarky, nasty, questioning authority, and using profanity like a sailor.
I honestly Believe that if there wasn’t a dashboard cam recording their encounter, that Ms Bland would’ve been subjected to a hell of a lot more than she was.
Why do people feel that when they are either rude, combative, running from or questioning a direct order, that they don’t deserve what they get when common sense tells you to shut up say yes sir or no sir and get on with your day.
I’ve also watched a good deal of Miss Bland’s prior videos and post and I honestly believe that to make a point she may have martyred herself to make one huge final statement to her clear agenda.
At the end of the day, I don’t care if you’re black, white, male or female, when you do not follow the law enforcement officers requests and then repeatedly call a police officer a “fucking pussy” ,expect to die.
“Somewhere in my brain, each laugh, tear and lullaby becomes memory.” ~ Jacqueline Woodson
Thanks for weighing in on the conversation, Carter.
The point of my essay was not to judge who was right or wrong in Brian Encinia’s encounter with Sandra Bland. Like you, my default setting when dealing with any human being– never mind one who has a badge and a gun– is civility and respect.
That said, I don’t think enough attention has been paid to why individuals respond to the same stimuli in such vastly different ways.
Why, for example, did Trooper Encinia lose control of a routine traffic stop so quickly– when countless policemen have different outcomes when facing the same stressors everyday? And why did Miss Bland’s composure crumble so completely when countless civilians have walked in her shoes, and walked away to tell the tale (as did you in NJ, and me in CA– see my previous comment to another reader in this thread?
If we keep looking for legislative solutions to solve spiritual problems, folks will be having the same conversation in 100 years that you and I are having today.
Had Encinia had the presence of mind to put himself in Bland’s place (a black woman; traveling alone; being stopped for a seemingly indiscernible reason… by a white, male policeman against the backdrop of the #BlackLivesMatter movement (in which Bland was active), he might have proceeded with more caution.
Likewise, had Bland considered what it must be like to walk in Encinia’s shoes (just trying to get through his day; having to stop random strangers on the street: hoping they’re not crazy, killers, on the run, or all of the above; having to establish and maintain control of a situation as a matter of survival; and craving, if not respect, at the very least compliance at a time when trust for the police is at an all-time low), she might have chosen her words more carefully.
Like two people in a toxic relationship, Encinia and Bland failed one another by assuming the worst of one another. This, I believe, is why their exchange crashed and burned so spectacularly. And to Tolle’s point about “painbodies,” it’s probably why Encinia and Bland crossed paths in the first place.
Hi, Gail – I very much appreciate your post about the Sandra Bland case, and your balanced and critical starting gate for analysis: Why do individuals respond the way they do to stress and challenge, and how can the answer to that question enlighten efforts to influence behavior going forward? I’ve thought a lot about Sandra Bland, who was obviously very bright and galvanized over the Black Lives Matter movement. I’ve also thought a lot about Encina’s behavior as the police officer inciting and responding to provocative behavior. While Bland, as you note, “didn’t behave as if her life mattered” by resisting arrest, Encina had the professional and moral obligation to do the opposite. He failed to do so. Both Bland and Encina used language and demonstrated behavior that were inappropriate. But we properly hold police officers to a higher standard of personal decorum, courtesy and self control, as they are the only ones who can legally brandish force in an encounter with civilians.
Anne, thanks for sharing your observations.
In theory, I agree that police officers should be held to a higher standard. But in life, I hold myself to the highest standard possible when dealing with the boys in blue because personal experience and anecdotal evidence has shown me that far too many of them don’t hold themselves to anything but the lowest standards.
I wish I had the confidence to “stand up for my rights” when dealing with policemen, but with so much on the line when one approaches, my desire to live supersedes any desire to know whether I’m dealing with a good cop or bad cop in any given exchange. Some things are better left to Higher Authorities.