David Montgomery

A newly released video of the roadside encounter shot on Bland’s own cellphone has prompted calls from Bland’s family, from a lawmaker in Texas, and from two Texas politicians running in the 2020 presidential race — Beto O’Rourke and Julián Castro — for renewed investigations into the case.

“Immediately reopen the investigation into Sandra Bland’s arrest and death,” O’Rourke, a former Democratic congressman from El Paso, said on Twitter, calling for “full accountability and justice.”

The video, which state and county officials insist was given to the Bland family nearly two years ago, was publicly broadcast for the first time this week. It has resurfaced a number of questions that have swirled around the case of a 28-year-old African American woman who was pulled over for failing to signal a lane change, shortly before she was to start a new job at Prairie View A&amp;M; University in Texas.

The biggest one is whether the state trooper, Brian Encinia, who is white, should have been held legally accountable for his description of the roadside encounter with Bland.

“My safety was in jeopardy at more than one time,” Encinia told investigators for the Department of Public Safety’s Office of Inspector General not long after Bland’s death.

A grand jury — based on what was known at the time, including video of the encounter from the officer’s dashcam — indicted Encinia for perjury. But the case was dropped in exchange for a promise from the trooper, who was fired, that he would never again work in law enforcement.

The new cellphone footage prompted O’Rourke to say Tuesday that the close-up look at the encounter that the video provides “leads me to call for a new trial.”

“We now have new evidence, and I hope with that trial, we finally get justice,” O’Rourke said.

But Shawn McDonald, a Houston lawyer who was part of the team of special prosecutors who handled the case against Encinia, said he was unsure whether the government could legally reopen the case against the former trooper.

In any case, he said, the cellphone video does not represent new evidence, since it was known to investigators and was disclosed to the family in response to the wrongful-death lawsuit they filed in the case. The suit was settled in 2016 for $1.9 million.

A number of questions were also raised after Bland’s death about what happened at the jail, and why a 28-year-old woman on her way to start a new job would take her own life.

Most of those questions have already been put to rest: Both her mental health background and the physical evidence in the autopsy report pointed to suicide.

The confrontation at the traffic stop led to Bland being arrested on a charge of assaulting a public servant. She was booked on July 10, 2015, into the Waller County jail in Hempstead, a town of about 6,000 in southeast Texas, and she was placed in a housing area for women.

Three days later, on July 13, a guard making the rounds found her hanging in her 15-by-20-foot cell in what officials described as a “semi-standing position,” with a plastic trash-can liner around her neck and affixed to a U-shaped metal hook overhead. She was pronounced dead shortly after 9 a.m.

The results of the autopsy, announced by officials on July 23, indicated that her injuries were consistent with suicide, not homicide. The autopsy found that the condition of Bland’s head, neck and hands lacked any signs of a violent struggle. Markings around her neck were also consistent with suicide, the medical examiners said.

Waller County officials later expressed regret that Bland had not been placed on suicide watch, particularly in light of her disclosure on a jail screening form that she had once tried to kill herself with pills after losing a baby. She also reported at the time she entered the jail that she had battled depression and was feeling depressed at the time.

“Have you ever attempted suicide?” the form asked. “Yes,” Bland wrote. “In 2015, lost baby, by taking pills.”

A second questionnaire, filled out hours later, said Bland had never been depressed, or was not feeling depressed at that moment, though it did note her earlier suicide attempt. Elton Mathis, the Waller County district attorney, said the discrepancy was a result of jail officials having asked Bland about her mindset at two different times, and her giving different answers.

“I do wish she would have been on a suicide watch,” Mathis said in 2015. “We all do.”

In a series of investigations and legislative hearings that unfolded after Bland’s death, jail officials and others gave varying accounts of Bland’s demeanor during her time in jail.

Dormic Smith, one of the jailers, told interviewers from the Texas Rangers that Bland “told him that she had changed her life and drove from Chicago, Illinois, for a job.” The jailer said he “never once thought she was suicidal, but she appeared to be in a state of disbelief about what was happening to her,” according to the Rangers’ report.

Other jail officials who looked in on Bland in her jail cell said she had seemed OK, but that she was clearly upset after being booked and placed in a holding cell.

Bland was “sitting in the holding cell with her face in her hands and she was crying,” Elsa Magnus, another jail employee, told investigators. “Bland said repeatedly that she did not do anything wrong,” Magnus told Rangers.

Another jailer, Randy Tomczak, said he offered Bland breakfast, but she declined to take the food tray. He then offered to leave the tray aside in case she changed her mind, he said, and she responded, “OK, thank you.”

During a security check at the end of his shift, Tomczak said he stepped into her cell “and told her that he would probably see her tonight, and she replied ‘OK,’” according to the investigative report.

One thing Bland seemed to be worried about, according to those who were at the jail, was getting out, and she had contacted her family for help. She had hoped to raise the $500 cash deposit needed to post her $5,000 bail, but had not managed to do so, the Waller County sheriff, R. Glenn Smith, told The New York Times in 2015.

At one point, according to the Rangers’ report, Bland asked if anyone had telephoned for her. She was told no.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/08/us/sandra-bland-texas-death.html" id="e948326f-6f38-359f-a12a-4a32b4e213c0">The New York Times</a>.

AUSTIN, Texas — Sandra Bland seemed calm and rational — if annoyed — during a 2015 traffic stop that led to her confrontation with a state trooper. Three days later, she was dead, having hanged herself in her jail cell, authorities said.

The Death of Sandra Bland: Is There Anything Left to Investigate?

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 found hanging 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

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&amp;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.

“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.

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.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/07/us/sandra-bland-texas-video.html" id="f30ef119-c233-30e3-a5ac-6cf49a7cf910">The New York Times</a>.

Sandra Bland, It Turns Out, Filmed Traffic Stop Confrontation Herself

AUSTIN, Texas — 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.

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 public knowledge. 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.

“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 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.

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

Sandra Bland, It Turns Out, Recorded Her Own Video of Traffic Stop Confrontation

Bland, a 28-year-old African American from Chicago, was taken into custody in southeast Texas following the confrontational 2015 traffic stop and was found hanging 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.

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David Montgomery

Articles written by the author

The Death of Sandra Bland: Is There Anything Left to Investigate?

Sandra Bland, It Turns Out, Filmed Traffic Stop Confrontation Herself

Sandra Bland, It Turns Out, Recorded Her Own Video of Traffic Stop Confrontation

Sandra Bland, It Turns Out, Recorded Her Own Video of Traffic Stop Confrontation

Sandra Bland, It Turns Out, Filmed Traffic Stop Confrontation Herself