News

Video released of Sandra Bland’s arrest

by Ben Kamisar - 07/21/15 7:45 PM ET

Newly released dashboard-camera video of the arrest of Sandra Bland, the woman who died in her jail cell after a routine traffic stop last week, shows a police officer appearing to point a weapon at Bland as he orders her to exit her car.

The scene was calm as the state trooper approached the car and began to talk to Bland, who is black, after he pulled her over for a failure to signal. But then the officer, identified as Brian Encinia, reaches into the car after she refused his orders to put out her cigarette and to step out of the vehicle. He then pulls something from a holster on his side and points it at her.

{mosads}“Get out of the car, I will light you up,” he yells during the video from the July 10 stop.

Bland’s lawyer told the “Tom Joyner Morning Show” on Monday, ahead of the video’s release, that the officer was pointing a Taser.

“Wow, you are doing all of this for a failure to signal? Yeah, let’s take this to court,” Bland replies as she gets out and walks to the edge of the frame.

Bland remains outside of the frame for most of the video but can be heard accusing the officer of slamming her head into the ground and kicking her to restrain her. That altercation was captured by a third party filming the arrest, but is shot from a distance, making events unclear in the footage.

The police took Bland to jail, where she was found last week dead in her cell after authorities say she hanged herself with a plastic bag.

The FBI and local law enforcement are investigating the death amid calls from Bland’s family and civil rights activists, who say she would not have killed herself.

“This is being treated like a murder investigation,” Waller County District Attorney Elton Mathis told reporters, according to CNN.

“There are too many questions that still need to be resolved. Ms. Bland’s family does make valid points that she did have a lot of things going on in her life that were good.”

Bland had been working as an alumni representative for Prairie View A&M University, her alma mater.

Encinia has been placed on administrative leave pending the investigation. Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw said the trooper failed to “exhibit professionalism and be courteous,” according to The Washington Post.