Four years after the death of Sandra Bland, a new video showing the fateful 2015 traffic stop from her perspective has surfaced.
WFAA points out that the existence of this video was never made public. Previously, the only footage of the traffic stop that was public was from former state trooper Brian Encina's dashcam. This new video shows Encina pointing a taser at Bland, exclaiming "I will light you up!"
Bland was arrested and later found hanging in her cell. While her death was initially ruled a suicide, it was later investigated as a murder. Encina was later indicted and fired for committing perjury, as it was determined he lied about the events that unfolded.
Soon after, the family of Bland reached a $1.9 million settlement with Texas authorities. Part of the settlement included the return of all of her personal belongings, though the family claims to have never received the above video. Cannon Lambert, the family's attorney, also said it wasn't made available during their case. "If they had turned it over, I would have seen it, Brian. I’ve not seen that," Lambert told chief reporter of the Investigative Network, Brian Collister.
Shante Needham, Bland's sister, insists the case should be reopened, as she believes the footage was intentionally withheld. "We also know they have an extremely, extremely good cover-up system,” she said.
In a statement, the Texas Department of Public Safety said, "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."
