This dashcam video is highly disturbing. Sandra Bland clearly understood her rights and resisted the officer's attempts to bully her, but the one thing she is not is suicidal.
The purpose for the traffic stop had ended, but he arrested her anyway, probably unlawfully, according to MSNBC commentators.
The Texas Department of Public Safety on Tuesday released a 52-minute dashcam video showing the heated traffic stop that ended in Bland’s arrest. The department said it is committed to a thorough and impartial investigation.
“DPS has been working closely with the family of Ms. Bland during this investigation, and the department extends our sincere condolences for their tragic loss,” DPS Director Steven McCraw said in a statement, adding that the department has cooperated fully with the FBI and the Texas Rangers.
“Get out of the car! I will light you up!”
The video shows state trooper Brian Encinia stopping Bland in her silver Hyundai Azera after he says she failed to signal a lane change.
“You OK?” Encinia asks Bland.“I’m waiting on you, this is your job,” Bland responds. “I’m waiting on you.”
“You seem very irritated,” Encinia adds.
Bland acknowledges that she’s annoyed because he was tailing her, then pulled her over. Encinia then asked Bland to put out her cigarette. When she refuses, he tells her to step out of the car. “I don’t want to step out of my car,” Bland says, adding, “I refuse to talk to you other than to identify myself.”
“I am going to yank you out of here,” Encinia says, moving his body inside her open door.
The situation escalates, and the trooper tells her she’s under arrest. “Get out of the car!” he commands. Bland asks why she’s being arrested, and then Encinia draws his Taser.
“Get out of the car! I will light you up,” he continues, prompting her to exit the vehicle.
Encinia then moves to arrest Bland on the sidewalk, where she is heard telling him that he is hurting his wrists after she is forced on the ground. The dashcam doesn’t capture the actual arrest.
As Bland is heard crying, another officer arrives on the scene. “You are yanking around,” Encinia says to Bland. “When you pull away from me, you’re resisting arrest.”
The trooper said in the arrest affidavit that Bland was “swinging her elbows at me and then kicked my right leg in the shin. I had a pain in my right leg and suffered small cuts on my right hand.” Encinia, who claimed Bland was “combative and uncooperative,” arrested her on a charge of assaulting a public servant.
Here is the full video:
This is so wrong. I will have more to say, but I wanted the video to get out there right away.
