Sandra Bland, it turns out, filmed traffic stop confrontation herself

Cellphone video has just been released showing the moment Trooper Brian Encinia pulled over Sandra Bland. Photo / AP/YouTube

As Trooper Brian Encinia angrily threatened her with a stun gun from just outside her car window, Sandra Bland recorded the encounter on her cellphone, shown in a newly released, 39-second video that has prompted Bland's family to call for a renewed investigation into her arrest and death nearly four years ago.

Bland, a 28-year-old African American from the Chicago area, was taken into custody in southeast Texas following the confrontational 2015 traffic stop and was dead in a jail cell three days later in what was officially ruled a suicide. The case, which drew international attention, intensified outrage over the treatment of black people by white police officers and was considered a turning point in the Black Lives Matter movement.

The video surfaced for the first time publicly Monday night in an investigative report on the Dallas television station WFAA that included interviews with Bland's family and supporters, who accused officials of concealing information that they say should have been made public early in the investigation.

Authorities released the trooper's dashcam video days after Bland's death but the fact that Bland recorded the encounter from the front seat of her car was not widely known, though authorities said the cellphone video's existence had been reported and no attempt had been made to conceal it.

In a statement, the Texas Department of Public Safety said the cellphone video was referred to "multiple times" in the department's investigative report on the incident and the video had been made available to the parties involved in a lawsuit filed by the family.

Cannon Lambert, a lawyer who represents the Bland family, said the video, by showing Bland with a cellphone in her hand, seriously undercut the trooper's claim that he feared for his safety as he approached the woman's vehicle.

"What the video shows is that Encinia had no reason to be in fear of his safety," Lambert, who represented the family in a $1.9 million legal settlement, said in a telephone interview. "The video shows that he wasn't in fear of his safety. You could see that it was a cellphone. He was looking right at it."

Encinia said during internal interviews with Department of Public Safety officials that he had been worried about his safety.

"My safety was in jeopardy at more than one time," he told department interviewers.

Encinia was indicted on a charge of perjury — the only criminal charge arising from the case — after grand jurors accused him of making a false statement in his claim that he removed Bland from her car to more safely conduct a traffic investigation. But the charge was later dismissed on a motion by prosecutors in exchange for the trooper's promise that he would never again work in law enforcement.

The prosecuting team concluded that Encinia's permanent ban from law enforcement was the best option because there was no certainty of obtaining a conviction on the perjury charge, one of the prosecutors said at the time.

Bland's death in a largely rural part of southeast Texas unified African American leaders throughout the state, leading to the enactment of the Sandra Bland Act in 2017, which requires training in de-escalation techniques for all police officers, sets up protections in custody for people with mental health and substance abuse issues, and requires that independent law enforcement agencies investigate jail deaths.

A memorial to Sandra Bland at the spot where she was arrested. Photo / Ilana Panich-Linsman, The New York Times

The new video recycled the tense roadside confrontation that millions of online viewers had already seen from the officer's dashcam video and another one shot by a bystander. The main difference was the perspective — in the video newly made public, Bland is directly facing Encinia.

"Get out of the car," the officer shouts as he thrusts a Taser toward her. "I will light you up. Get out. Now."

Bland was pulled over near the campus of Prairie View A&M University in Waller County, where she had been planning to begin a new job, after the trooper said she failed to signal a turn. But the traffic stop became heated and Encinia ordered Bland out of the car.

After the trooper told her to "get off the phone," Bland responded: "I'm not on the phone. I have a right to record. This is my property."

"Put your phone down," Encinia repeated. "Put your phone down right now."

The video was released by WFAA in partnership with the nonprofit Investigative Network. Its chief reporter, Brian Collister, said the video had been in the hands of law investigators until it was obtained by his news organization. Members of Bland's family called on Texas officials to re-examine the case after Collister showed them the video, according to the WFAA report.

Sandra Bland stands before a desk at Waller County Jail in Hempstead, Texas. A grand jury decided neither the sheriff's officials nor jailers committed a crime in the treatment of Bland. Photo / AP

"Open up the case, period," Bland's sister, Shante Needham, told the station. "We know they have an extremely, extremely good cover-up system."

Lambert, the family's lawyer, told The Times that the release of the video raised questions about prosecutors' decision not to press ahead with the perjury case, saying the recording undercut Encinia's claim that he feared for his safety.

"So if the video showed that he had no basis of being in fear of his safety, and he lied about that, then you would think they would be using that video," he said, calling prosecutors' decision not to pursue the case "extremely troubling."

A team of five special prosecutors was assigned to the grand jury investigation. One of the team members, Shawn McDonald, a Houston lawyer, said Monday that he was not involved in the decision to drop the charges and pushed back at Lambert's criticism of the team's performance.

"For him to come back three years later is frankly quite ridiculous," said McDonald, who added that he was "proud" of the investigation into the case.

Texas State Trooper Brian Encinia, after his arrest on a perjury charge. Photo / AP

McDonald said he first saw Bland's video more than three years ago.

"It was her cellphone, so it was taken as evidence when we investigated the case," he said.

Evidence typically was not released, he said, though a decision was made to release the trooper's video shortly after the case began unfolding in an effort "to be transparent because of the concern everyone had with her arrest and subsequent suicide."

Chip Lewis, a Houston lawyer who represented Encinia in the investigation, said his client was in a new career "wholly unrelated" to law enforcement, but he offered few details.

"He's working in the private sector, supporting his wife and family and living a quiet life," Lewis said.

WHERE TO GET HELP:

If you are worried about your or someone else's mental health, the best place to get help is your GP or local mental health provider. However, if you or someone else is in danger or endangering others, call police immediately on 111.

OR IF YOU NEED TO TALK TO SOMEONE ELSE:

• 0800 543 354 (0800 LIFELINE) or free text 4357 (HELP) (available 24/7)
• https://www.lifeline.org.nz/services/suicide-crisis-helpline
• YOUTHLINE: 0800 376 633
• NEED TO TALK? Free call or text 1737 (available 24/7)
• KIDSLINE: 0800 543 754 (available 24/7)
• WHATSUP: 0800 942 8787 (1pm to 11pm)
• DEPRESSION HELPLINE: 0800 111 757 or TEXT 4202

Written by: David Montgomery
Photographs by: Ilana Panich-Linsman

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