AWFUL

Cellphone Video Taken by Sandra Bland During 2015 Traffic Stop Emerges

In the 39-second clip, Trooper Brian Encinia yells: “Get out of the car! I will light you up.”

Cellphone video taken by Sandra Bland, a black woman who was locked up after a traffic stop near Houston and was later found dead in her cell, shows how a white state trooper pointed his stun gun at her while hollering at her to exit the car, the Associated Press reports. The clip, less than a minute long, was released by the Investigative Network and aired Monday night on the Dallas station WFAA. The footage begins with Trooper Brian Encinia, who had opened 28-year-old Bland’s car door, attempting to pull her out of the vehicle. “Get out of the car!” Encinia yells as a light on the stun gun flashes on. “I will light you up. Get out!” Bland continues to record as the trooper orders her onto a sidewalk, his stun gun still aimed at her. When Encinia tells Bland to put down her phone, she says: “I’m not on the phone. I have a right to record. This is my property.” The video ends a few seconds later. Attorney Cannon Lambert said Bland’s family had not seen the footage prior to settling lawsuits against the state and county jail that reached a total amount of nearly $2 million. “It is troubling that a crucial piece of evidence was withheld from Sandra Bland’s family and legal team in their pursuit of justice,” Democratic state Rep. Garnet Coleman said in a statement.