"Anybody on the street could have said they wanted to testify," Special Prosecutor Darrell Jordan said. "We wanted anybody. ... He never, never, never, never (contacted us)."
By Gabrielle Banks and St. John Barned-Smith
Houston Chronicle
July 30, 2016
Prairie View, Texas -- A police officer present during a portion of Sandra Bland's ill-fated traffic stop said Tuesday that the Waller County district attorney's office would not let him testify before a grand jury about evidence favorable to Bland, saying he was told his career would suffer if he went public with what he had seen and heard.
But Waller County District Attorney Elton R. Mathis Jr. dismissed Officer Michael Kelley's account as "fictional," noting that Kelley has since been indicted on charges he unlawfully arrested a local city councilman.
"I unequivocally state that he never approached me, my first assistant, or any member of my staff with any such information," Mathis said in the emailed statement. "His job was never threatened by me or my staff, and I barely knew who he was before he was indicted."
Prairie View Officer Michael Kelley told the Chronicle on Tuesday that he outlined his allegations in a sworn deposition last week stemming from a federal lawsuit filed by Bland's mother over her 28-year-old daughter's death in the Waller County Jail on July 13, 2015.
Bland's death was ruled a suicide and spurred outrage from civil rights activists concerned with police treatment of African-Americans. Her mother, Geneva Reed-Veal, spoke Tuesday night at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia along with other mothers whose children died during interactions with police or from gun violence.
An audio recording of Kelley describing the Bland arrest was released Tuesday by Waller County activist DeWayne Charleston. Activists who joined him in a news conference called for a U.S. Department of Justice investigation into the case.
"This is what happens when you try to cross the thin blue line," said Charleston, a former justice of the peace in Waller County and local activist who was convicted in 2010 on conspiracy involving bribery.
Kelley's allegations are the second in a week to raise questions about the Bland investigation. A former jailer also has testified under oath in a deposition that he falsified jail logs on the day Bland died, but a source told the Chronicle that the grand jury decided not to indict anyone from the sheriff's office in the case.
Kelley said he was indicted months later in an unrelated incident with the councilman -- a charge he said was unjustly leveled against him but none of the other officers involved.
"I was not a target until I started running my mouth and sticking up for Sandra Bland," said Kelley, 33, who has been with the Prairie View police since 2014 but is currently on suspension pending the outcome of the charge against him.
'Red flags ... on my end'
Bland was already handcuffed in the back seat of a squad car, covered in grass and dirt, by the time Kelley arrived on the scene on July 10, 2015. She showed signs of bruising on her forehead, he said.
The trooper, Brian Encinia, told Kelley at the time that he didn't yet know what charge he would use to book Bland into the jail. She was stopped initially for changing lanes without using a turn signal.
Kelley said he heard Bland tell Encinia that she suffered from epilepsy, to which the trooper responded, "Good."
After Bland was found hanging in her jail cell three days later, a Texas Ranger came to the Prairie View station and asked Kelley and another officer at the scene to write reports of what they had seen. Kelley said he and the officer printed out their statements, but the Ranger told them not to make copies or sign them.
"That's when the red flags started coming on my end," Kelley said.
The other officer was instructed to put her statement into the computer system, Kelley said. He never input his, but his chief said he'd take care of his supplemental report.
During his deposition last week, Kelley said he was presented with a copy of what was submitted as his report.
He said the facts in the document were not inaccurate but "generic," with statements incriminating to the trooper omitted.
Kelley said he asked to testify before a grand jury, but an official with the DA's office declined to subpoena him. When he threatened to call one of Bland's mother's lawyers, the officials said that doing so would not be good for his career, he said.
Mathis, the district attorney, 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."
Mathis 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."
'He never' came to us
A special prosecutor who investigated Bland's detention and death called Kelley's assertions "outlandish," sharply criticizing the Prairie View officer's statements and those of Charleston, the former JP.
"Why would a police officer who's in the know, who knows the system inside and out, contact the DA when there were special prosecutors involved and they were handling the case?" an exasperated Darrell Jordan said, explaining that Kelley had never reached out to him or other prosecutors.
"Anybody on the street could have said they wanted to testify," Jordan said. "We wanted anybody. ... He never, never, never, never (contacted us)."
Jordan noted that Encinia, the trooper, was eventually indicted on a misdemeanor perjury charge over the statements he made about the arrest. The charge is pending.
"I mean, we ended up coming with an indictment -- instead, he's saying he would have had more evidence to help us indict or to give to the grand jury to make their decision and we kept it out?" he asked. "That's not even in line with the final results."
He also criticized Charleston's comments, saying Charleston appeared not to understand the basics of the case.
Kelley confirmed he did not contact the special prosecutor, and he could not say whether Mathis, the DA, knew about the conversation with the other official in Mathis' office.
But Kelley said he questions the district attorney's pledge to investigate Bland's death fully.
"He gave statements to the media they would leave no stone unturned," he said. "I wasn't allowed to give testimony. I was a stone that wasn't turned over."
EDITOR’ NOTE: While the trooper’s arrest of Bland was somewhat questionable, there is absolutely no evidence that any officer was involved in any way with Bland’s death. She committed suicide by hanging herself, but her family and black activists continue to insist she died at the hands of cops.
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