Texas officials question black woman’s arrest in Waller County

(EDITOR’S NOTE: The dash-cam video released Tuesday by the Texas Department of Public Safety contains graphic and obscene language.)

PRAIRIE VIEW — About a dozen state and local officials emerged from a private briefing Tuesday to express skepticism that Sandra Bland should even have been arrested, and they urged the public to await the results of a grand jury investigation into her traffic stop and subsequent death in the Waller County Jail.

“This young woman should be alive today,” said state Rep. Helen Giddings, D-Dallas, reflecting the belief of some officials that she should not have been arrested in the first place.

After seeing the dashboard-camera footage of Bland’s arrest, lawmakers raised concerns about the behavior of Texas Department of Public Safety trooper Brian Encinia. Still, lawmakers asked those demanding answers — Bland’s family, the media and a country increasingly upset by the deaths of blacks in custody — to let the investigation run its course.

“Everyone wants to rush,” Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said. “That’s not justice. Justice is looking at the evidence and letting the facts speak for themselves. … I want that family when they go back to Chicago … to believe that they had justice in Texas.”

Bland, 28, was found hanged inside the Waller County Jail three days after she was arrested on a charge of assaulting a public servant during the traffic stop.

Last week, DPS reassigned Encinia to desk duties because the dash-cam video revealed violations of traffic stop procedures. Several lawmakers have urged the agency to release that footage since a bystander video of part of the arrest surfaced last week.

The investigation into Bland’s death — which the Harris County medical examiner ruled a suicide last week — now includes the possibility of murder.

“This is being treated like a murder investigation,” Waller County District Attorney Elton Mathis said Monday at a news conference.

After viewing the video, Mathis said Bland was not “compliant” with Encinia’s directions.

“Sandra Bland was very combative. It was not a model traffic stop. It was not a model person that was stopped,” Mathis said.

Encinia said Bland became “combative” after he pulled her over for an improper lane change, according to the arrest report released Tuesday.

“Bland began swinging her elbows at me and then kicked my right leg in the shin,” Encinia wrote in the report. “I had a pain in my right leg and suffered small cuts on my right hand. Force was used to subdue Bland to the ground to which Bland continued to fight back.”

A Baltimore pastor who also saw the dash-cam video said it does not show Bland attacking the officer.

“There is not one shot, not one scene of where Ms. Bland ever assaulted police,” the Rev. Jamal Bryant, one of several activists who came to Waller County after Bland’s death, said Monday.

Multiple agencies, including the Texas Rangers and the FBI, have announced investigations into the death.

The autopsy has been completed, but the report has not been finished and was not available. Last week, the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences, which typically does autopsies for Waller County, ruled Bland’s death a suicide by hanging.

Mathis and Waller County Judge Trey Duhon met Tuesday with one of Bland’s sisters and her mother to update the family on the investigation.

“The family expressed some of their concerns and the fact that they still have many questions that need to be answered,” Duhon said in a statement. “We assured the family that everything will be provided to them so that they can get those answers.”

This story was originally published July 21, 2015 at 7:58 PM with the headline "Texas officials question black woman’s arrest in Waller County."