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On the 26th, Prairie View police officer, Michael Kelley, took part in an interview with the Huffington Post in which he claims law enforcement officials conducted a cover-up in Sandra Bland’s case. Since the incident, he has been indicted for perjury and fired from his job.
Kelley had been present on the scene the day Sandra Bland was arrested, however by the time he arrived, Bland was already seated in the backseat of the police car. She apparently had an injury to her head, though Kelley is unsure how it happened.
He then stated that trooper Brian Encinia, the officer who arrested Bland, turned off his body camera and admitted he didn’t know what to charge Bland with, but declared he would think of something. All of this information was included in Officer Kelley’s official report of the incident, but it was later removed by higher officials. Of the original two-page report Kelley filed, less than half a page of it was submitted into the official record without his permission.
“My opinion is that he messed up,” Kelley stated in his interview with the Huffington Post. “He did not have probable cause to detain her after he pulled her out of the car.” He continues, “She had a large mark on her head. Maybe she fell when she was in handcuffs. Maybe she got kicked.”
After informing the Assistant District Attorney, Warren Diepraam, that he wanted to testify before the grand jury, Kelley claims Diepraam threatened that it wouldn’t be good for his career. Kelley told him he still planned to talk to Sandra Bland’s mother’s attorney, at which point Diepraam told Kelley he was “going to be beneath the jail.”
Diepraam did not respond to the Huffington Post’s inquiries, and Encinia’s lawyer denies the accusations, of course.
Last October, Kelley himself was indicted in another case for tasering a black Prairie View city councilman. The Waller County DA’s office claims the reason Kelley is stepping forward now on the Sandra Bland case is to avert attention away from his previous offense. In this statement from District Attorney Elton Mathis:
“I unequivocally state that he never approached me, my first assistant, or any member of my staff with any such information. His job was never threatened by me or my staff, and I barely knew who he was before he was indicted. I can only imagine that this is an attempt to divert attention away from the crime he 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.”
It should be noted that Kelley did not approach the Huffington Post himself, and that the only reason his version of events have gone public is because a local activist by the name of Dwayne Charleston recorded a conversation he had with Kelley back in March about Bland’s arrest. Charleston is the one who first made Kelley’s version of events public. It’s also interesting to note that while the D.A. claims no one threatened Kelley’s job or that he would face jail time, he still lost his job and faced jail time. Go figure.
In the meantime, what’s Brian Encinia up to these days? He’s on desk duty. And we wonder why police don’t step forward more often.
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