Video: Cop Tells Sandra Bland, 'I Will Light You Up'

Dashcam video shows tense arrest
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 21, 2015 9:30 PM CDT

Authorities in Texas have released the dashcam video of the arrest of Sandra Bland, and it reveals an increasingly hostile encounter between her and trooper Brian Encinia, reports NBC and the New York Times. After an initial exchange, Encinia tells Bland she seems irritated and she answers, "I am. I really am." He tells her to put out her cigarette, she refuses, and he orders her out of her car. "I don't want to step out of my car," Bland says. "I refuse to talk to you other than to identify myself." Encinia threatens to "yank you out of there."

He repeatedly orders her out of the car and she repeatedly refuses. With his Taser drawn, the trooper says, "Get out of the car! I will light you up." At that point, Bland leaves the vehicle, and continues to question the trooper as he arrests her. She's incredulous this is happening over a "failure to signal" and threatens to see him in court. At one point, she can be heard telling him that he's hurting her wrists with the handcuffs. "You are yanking around," Encinia says to Bland. "When you pull away from me, you're resisting arrest." She ended up in jail and was subsequently found hanging in her cell. Encinia has been placed on desk duty. (More Sandra Bland stories.)

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