Sandra Bland was pulled over by police, arrested, and put in a jail cell in Texas in July 2015. Three days later, she was found dead in a jail cell. Authorities ruled that her death was a suicide, though her family maintained that didn’t make sense. This tragedy happened almost four years ago, and became part of a broader national dialogue about police brutality, and specifically, systemic police violence against black Americans.
Today, people are talking about Bland again. Why? A cellphone video of her arrest, recorded by Bland herself, has surfaced publicly—and what it depicts is more than enough for her family to want her case reopened.
To review Bland’s story, and where we’re at today, let’s go over what happened at the time.
Bland, who was 28 years old, was jailed for three days over a traffic stop before her alleged suicide. This happened in Waller County, which is outside of Houston. Though Bland was actually from a suburb of Chicago, she was in the area of Prairie View A&M, where she had attended school, as she was going to start working there as a college outreach officer.
The officer, former Texas state trooper Brian Encinia, alleged that Bland was pulled over because she failed to use an appropriate signal. From there, Encinia claimed he was in fear for his life because of her response. At the time, and during the subsequent investigation, only the dashcam footage from the officer’s SUV was considered.
Bland’s family ultimately reached a $1.9 million wrongful-death settlement with the county and the Texas Department of Public Safety. And Encinia? He was fired by the Texas DPS, but only ever faced one criminal charge in the case. Specifically, he faced a perjury charge, in which prosecutors alleged that he’d lied on his official report when he described Bland as “combative and uncooperative.” That charge was dropped, however, when Encinia turned over his license.
Now, with the 39-second recording released (which is embedded at the bottom of this post), Bland’s family wants the case reopened.
"Open up the case, period," Shante Needham, Bland’s sister, said as reported by Dallas TV station WFAA.
Brian Collister, a reporter for the Investigative Network whose work is broadcast on WFAA, acquired the cellphone recording. Collister first got the video in 2017, but it (obviously) wasn’t used in stories then. As reported by Houston Public Media, the journalist decided to release it now because he realized that Bland’s family had never seen it.
The Bland family’s former attorney, Cannon Lambert, says the state never introduced the footage. As reported by the Associated Press, Lambert said he himself hadn’t seen the clip until recently.
Texas officials say that isn’t true. In a statement, DPS says:
“The premise that the video was not produced as a part of the discovery process is wrong. “A hard drive containing copies of 820 Gigabytes of data compiled by DPS from its investigation, including the dashcam videos, jail video footage and data from Sandra Bland’s cell phone, was part of discovery.”
The video is, at minimum, extremely upsetting. If you don't want to watch the video, but want to get an idea of what happened, here are some of the key moments:
“Why am I being apprehended? You trying to give me a ticket for your failure?” Bland is heard saying to the officer.
“I said get out of the car,” he replied. “I’m going to drag you out of here.”
"Why am I being apprehended?" Bland asks Encinia. As she speaks, it seems that she’s trying to point her phone’s camera at him. When the camera does focus? His stun gun is already pointed at her.
"Get out of the car. I will light you up," Encinia replies.
"Wow, wow, wow. You’re doing all this for a failure to signal?" Bland says in response.
Encinia tells Bland to get off her phone. She says, "I’m not on the phone. I have a right to record. This is my property."
Then the video ends.
Whether Bland died by suicide or not, as her family has consistently pointed out, she shouldn’t have been jailed for three days because she didn’t use a traffic signal. And in terms of Encinia’s defense that he feared for his safety? I don’t see a single second of that in the video. Do you?
“We also know they have an extremely, extremely good cover-up system,” Needham, who believes the footage was intentionally withheld, said to WFAA. What do you think?
Update:
Julián Castro and Beto O’Rourke, both of Texas, are calling for the investigation to be reopened.