Page 142 - Malcolm Gladwell - Talking to Strangers

and drugs. But if the police officer is to find that criminal needle in a haystack, he has to fight the
rational calculation that most of us make that the world is a pretty honest place.
So what is Brian Encinia? He’s the police officer who does not default to truth. Here’s a day from
Brian Encinia’s career, chosen at random: September 11, 2014.
3:52 p.m. The beginning of his shift. He stops a truck driver and tickets him for not having the
appropriate reflective tape on his trailer.
4:20 p.m. He stops a woman for an improperly placed license plate.
4:39 p.m. He stops another woman for a license-plate infraction.
4:54 p.m. He notices a driver with an expired registration, stops him, and then also cites him
for an expired license.
5:12 p.m. He stops a woman for a minor speeding infraction (that is, less than 10 percent over
the speed limit).

5:58 p.m. He stops someone for a major speeding infraction.
6:14 p.m. He stops a man for an expired registration, then gives him three more tickets for a
license infraction and having an open container of alcohol in his vehicle.
8:29 p.m. He stops a man for “no/improper ID lamp” and “no/improper clearance lamp.”
It goes on. Ten minutes later, he stops a woman for noncompliant headlamps, then two more
minor speeding tickets over the next half hour. At 10 p.m. a stop for “safety chains,” and then, at the
end of his shift, a stop for noncompliant headlamps.
In that list, there is only one glaring infraction—the 5:58 stop for speeding more than 10 percent
over the limit. Any police officer would respond to that. But many of the other things Encinia did
that day fall under the category of modern, proactive policing. You pull over a truck driver for
improper reflective tape, or someone else for “no/improper clearance lamp,” when you are looking
for something else—when you are consciously looking, as Remsberg put it, to “go beyond the
ticket.”
One of the key pieces of advice given to proactive patrol officers to protect them from
accusations of bias or racial profiling is that they should be careful to stop everyone. If you’re going
to use trivial, trumped-up reasons for pulling someone over, make sure you act that way all the time.
“If you’re accused of profiling or pretextual stops, you can bring your daily logbook to court and
document that pulling over motorists for ‘stickler’ reasons is part of your customary pattern,”
Remsberg writes, “not a glaring exception conveniently dusted off in the defendant’s case.”
That’s exactly what Encinia did. He had day after day like September 11, 2014. He got people for
improper mud flaps and for not wearing a seat belt and for straddling lanes and for obscure
violations of vehicle-light regulations. He popped in and out of his car like a Whac-A-Mole. In just
under a year on the job, he wrote 1,557 tickets. In the twenty-six minutes before he stopped Sandra
Bland, he stopped three other people.
So: Encinia spots Sandra Bland on the afternoon of July 10. In his deposition given during the
subsequent investigation by the Inspector General’s office of the Texas Department of Public Safety,
Encinia said he saw Bland run a stop sign as she pulled out of Prairie View University. That’s his
curiosity tickler. He can’t pull her over at that point, because the stop sign is on university property.
But when she turns onto State Loop 1098, he follows her. He notices she has Illinois license plates.
That’s the second curiosity tickler. What’s someone from the other end of the country doing in East
Texas?
“I was checking the condition of the vehicle, such as the make, the model, if it had a license
plate, any other conditions,” Encinia testified. He was looking for an excuse to pull her over. “Have
you accelerated up on vehicles at that speed in the past, to check their condition?” Encinia is asked
by his interrogator, Cleve Renfro. “I have, yes sir,” Encinia replies. For him, it’s standard practice.
When Bland sees Encinia in her rearview mirror coming up fast behind her, she moves out of the
way to let him pass. But she doesn’t use her turn signal. Bingo! Now Encinia has his justification:
Title 7, subtitle C, Section 545.104, part (a) of the Texas Transportation Code, which holds that “An
operator shall use the signal authorized by Section 545.106 to indicate an intention to turn, change