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    kamla deviEllie Shechet
    7/29/15 10:09am

    Obviously she didn’t use marijuana in jail, but let’s say for the sake of the argument she did, doesn’t that just further highlight the gross negligence and general ineffectiveness and incompetence of the Wallace County police department?*

    *Please note, I only say this because it seems like the pro-cop camp is like “oooo she was such a baddie she toked up in jail she deserved to die!!!” and I’m trying to point out a problem with that logic.

    No one should die in a jail cell. Don’t ever trust the police.

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      Beet Arthurkamla devi
      7/29/15 10:15am

      Right? But not only that but she had already been searched and changed into a jumpsuit, so where did she keep it? Are you telling me she drove with pot stuffed up you know where just in case she got put in jail? And then as she got pulled over for a lane change, she didn’t do the thing people who are actually committing crimes do, which is shut the fuck up and be TOO nice to the cops? This whole thing is just disgusting.

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      kamla deviBeet Arthur
      7/29/15 10:30am

      I live in Atlanta, and if cops actually pulled people over for failing to signal while changing lanes the jails would overflow at crisis levels. The whole thing is bullshit from start to tragic end.

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    andsmokeit is mrs tormund giantsbaneEllie Shechet
    7/29/15 10:15am

    she also wasn’t arrested for a DUI?

    so i’m not sure why this is relevant at all?

    also mostly because THC doesn’t cause people to up and hang themselves on the reg?

    am i taking crazy pills?

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      thetallblonde loves twinjaandsmokeit is mrs tormund giantsbane
      7/29/15 10:17am
      GIF
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      Sipowitzandsmokeit is mrs tormund giantsbane
      7/29/15 10:23am

      Not gonna matter to the racist cop-supporters. Just like how Trayvon’s Skittles were actually so he could mix them with cough syrup and get drunk which was definitely proven (again, to these racist dumbshits) because his autopsy showed he had a slightly fatty liver.

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    LocoEstebanEllie Shechet
    7/29/15 10:36am

    I totally understand the point of this article and I agree that major shade should be cast at those fucking garbage rags for attempting to smear her and imply the worst (she ‘deserved’ it.) It’s fucking bullshit and it’s generally bullshit that is only used to smear PoC, making it at least somewhat racist.

    However, I wanted to discuss this line here:


    University of Florida toxicology professor Bruce Goldberger was quoted as saying, ““I don’t think it’s possible to rule out the possibility of use while in jail,” a notion so unlikely that it seems odd to publicize it; no evidence has been found to back up that claim.

    Speaking from my own experience in a Florida jail, it’s not really impossible that she smoked marijuana in jail. It’s a very safe bet she didn’t bring it herself (she was searched and arrested by surprise, having not anticipated she may go to jail and for good reason!) but it’s important to note:

    While marijuana is uncommon at prisons (because convicted inmates are subject to periodic surprise drug tests, making smoking weed a risky proposition) it’s somewhat more common in county jails... especially on weekends. Why weekends? Because some people receive sentences that cause them to attend weekend jail so they can continue to work Monday-Friday.

    One benefit of going to weekend jail is that you know you’re going to go sit in jail in advance, so you can smuggle things in (probably in your butt, to evade strip searches) to jail to entertain yourself, like... well, weed or pills! Pills were more common than weed, but both things were pretty available on Saturday/Sunday as the weekend jail squad checked in. Oftentimes the weekend jail crew would spread the wealth with their cell mates and maybe somebody they were friends with outside their cell; a person who looks out for their ‘friends’ is less likely to be snitched on and therefore caught/charged with a smuggling contraband felony.

    I think your argument that THC levels can change after death is compelling. I absolutely believe that’s the most likely case. But it’s certainly not super unlikely or out of the question that she did; there’s weed in every large jail in the country, and probably a large percentage of the smaller jails to boot. As another commenter pointed out, this is just evidence that the CO’s running the jail do not have control and are not doing their jobs well; indeed, some of those corrupt motherfuckers might be smuggling drugs in THEMSELVES to sell to inmates for a profit. The 2nd biggest source of drugs in county jails, after weekend jail attendees, has got to be Corrections Officers themselves.

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      iamccLocoEsteban
      7/29/15 10:47am

      Except she was alone in her cell. I can't imagine one would be able to successfully hang oneself surrounded by cell mates

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      SheeshTheseNamesLocoEsteban
      7/29/15 10:58am

      But the amount they are claiming was in her system is too much for someone to just have normally smoked it. It’s so much that she would have had to eat it. From my stoner friends: The amount in half a pan of brownies. Not one brownie. Not two. Half a pan. Which would make you sick if you tried to eat it, especially with no actual brownie. So I call bullshit on this whole thing.

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    RooseveltsRevengeEllie Shechet
    7/29/15 10:08am

    “It was mostly republished by right-of-center publications like the New York Post and Fox News, with little interest from the liberal media”

    Let’s get something straight right now. There is liberal media, but mainstream media ain’t it. And pretty much all liberal media was a response to the wildly inaccurate, vitriolic reporting of conservative media, that sprang up because conservatives didn’t like having “the truth” reported about their policies.

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      Ellie ShechetRooseveltsRevenge
      7/29/15 10:14am

      That was a wording mistake on my part—a pretty bad one! It’s been fixed.

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      HecateBarTheDoorRooseveltsRevenge
      7/29/15 10:37am

      Thank you. The bogus cry of “liberal media” by conservatives has gone on long enough. Those few times when right-wing propaganda is challenged with actual facts, the wailing begins. FOX News audiences are so dumb they think Dan Rather had something to do with Obama being elected and re-elected even though he was drummed out of the mainstream media in 2006.

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    Kris-the-Needlessly-DefiantEllie Shechet
    7/29/15 10:17am

    I would love (LOVE) to see figures on how much of the general public has THC in their system at any given time (I suspect it’s higher than anyone thinks). I always try to substitute THC for caffeine in these types of stories (ex. the deceased had caffeine in their system and probably consumed coffee before their death).

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      andsmokeit is mrs tormund giantsbaneKris-the-Needlessly-Defiant
      7/29/15 10:20am

      I would love (LOVE) to see figures on how much of the general public has THC in their system at any given time

      GIF
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      Kris-the-Needlessly-Defiantandsmokeit is mrs tormund giantsbane
      7/29/15 10:27am

      I hadn’t given it much thought, but upon reflection I’ve come to the conclusion that I’ve had THC in my system for the last 20 years.

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    HaHaYouFoolEllie Shechet
    7/29/15 10:37am

    While Bland’s postmortem THC levels are certainly relevant to the ongoing investigation into her death

    Honestly, I don’t see how they are. There were no drug-related charges, nor even any concern at the time of the arrest about drugs or impairment. All this hullabaloo about the THC level in her blood samples is post hoc rationalization of the aggressive treatment by the cops. If the cops didn’t know, or have a reasonable suspicion, that she was high/impaired when they arrested her, it IS irrelevant.

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      crazybirdladyHaHaYouFool
      7/29/15 11:13am

      They’re relevant in the sense that some people involved in the investigation will at the very least point to the fact that she had EVER used marijuana as some sort of character assassination.

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      ZabellaHaHaYouFool
      7/29/15 12:47pm

      You’re expecting logic from people that don’t use it. On team She Deserved It, they aren’t even sure why she got pulled over (they can’t be bothered to watch the video learns some facts), so why not label her as a DUI? Anything to make her less sympathetic.

      To give you an example of the mindset these people have: when Trayvon Martin’s character was being assassinated, I knew someone who pointed out a text message about getting a friend some weed and cited this as proof Martin was a drug dealer. When I pointed out to this person how he had sold me weed on more than one occasion and by his own logic was a drug dealer deserving to die at the hands of a neighbor, he was dumbfounded. It had never occured to him that he did what Martin did, and when he started to question all the talking points he had memorized, his head nearly exploded.

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    armahilloEllie Shechet
    7/29/15 10:09am

    “Crap, they have footage of us fucking up? Uh... Go spin it about drugs! Go after the reefer. That’s always worked before.”

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      Fieryrebirtharmahillo
      7/29/15 10:19am

      “We must justify the blood on our hands! We must make the person under our care look bad!”

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    adultosaur married anna on the astral planeEllie Shechet
    7/29/15 10:50am

    a) if sandra was able to ingest marijuana in any way while in jail, the police did a shitty ass job.

    b) she could have been high as a kite and not deserved to die in prison

    c) sandra bland was not arrested for a dui. if she was high at the time of her arrest, the office failed to notice, which is on him.

    HAVING THC IN HER SYSTEM FOR ANY REASON DOES NOT DESERVE A DEATH SENTENCE.

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      Zabellaadultosaur married anna on the astral plane
      7/29/15 12:51pm

      HAVING THC IN HER SYSTEM FOR ANY REASON DOES NOT DESERVE A DEATH SENTENCE.

      The most infuriating thing about this case is an innocent woman dead. Runner up is the constant bumbling of the authorities involved in this case. Second runner up is the number of people with THC in their system who will agree Bland’s death is justified because she had THC in her system. In these dog days of summer, the heat, humidity, and hypocrisy are at peak levels.

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    Mal7931Ellie Shechet
    7/29/15 10:10am

    How does this even matter? Even if she was high out of her tree at the time, I find it extremely unlikely she would have killed herself. Being high off marijuana does not make someone suicidal out of thin air. This sounds like people, who do not smoke weed, weret grasping at straws and trying to make people believe she was not in her right mind at the time of her death. They killed her, end of story.

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      SqarrMal7931
      7/29/15 10:23am

      It doesn’t matter.

      You’re trying to talk sense to white supremacists.

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    Tequila MockingbirdEllie Shechet
    7/29/15 11:20am

    WHAT DOES MARIJUANA HAVE TO DO WITH ANYTHING?

    She wasn’t pulled over for being impaired. She wasn’t tested for being impaired. She wasn’t accused of being impaired or any other drug charge. She was pulled over for failure to signal and ended up beat, in jail, and dead.

    So...again, WHAT DOES MARIJUANA HAVE TO DO WITH ANYTHING?

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      ZabellaTequila Mockingbird
      7/29/15 12:55pm

      WHAT DOES MARIJUANA HAVE TO DO WITH ANYTHING?

      It allows all kinds of people to tell themselves this will never happen to them because they don’t smoke weed. If you think about it, the fact that you can die at the hands of police for something as legal as smoking a cigarette in your own vehicle is terrifying. Better to tell yourself this will never happen to you because you don’t smoke weed, finish the bottle of wine/6 pack of beer, and pass out. See also: women who tell themselves they won’t be raped because they don’t dress like that, get super drunk, go up to a man’s hotel room, etc.

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