April V. Taylor

Award winning filmmaker Ava DuVernay along with many others believe that the recently released dashcam footage of Sandra Bland’s violent arrest was edited. Bland was found dead in a Texas jail cell after being pulled over for a minor traffic violation and then being removed from her car after refusing to put out her cigarette. Police claim that Bland committed suicide, but her family believes she was killed. Waller County District Attorney Elton Mathis reported that Bland’s death would be handled as a murder investigation after release of the dashcam footage.

I edit footage for a living. But anyone can see that this official video has been cut. Read/watch. Why? #SandraBland http://t.co/2JXy9Zc4Y3 — Ava DuVernay (@AVAETC) July 22, 2015

NBC is reporting that authorities from the Texas Department of Public Safety are looking into whether or not the 52-minute dashcam video was edited. There are multiple points in the footage were a person walking or a car driving by are cut out or repeat themselves as the audio continues without interruption. DPS spokesman Tom Vinger spoke with NBC News and said that he could not speculate on whether or not the footage had been edited without looking at the original CD the video was stored on.

In the following clip at 25:05 in the footage, a two truck driver is seen walking towards the trooper’s cruiser and then walking out of the frame. The same driver reappears fifteen seconds later, walking the same route despite the audio not repeating itself.

Another irregularity occurs at 32:37. In the clip below, a white car drives into the view of the dashcam but then disappears immediately, reappearing seconds later and then making a left-hand turn. A different white car appears from 32:49 to 32:59, and then the original white car appears again at 33:04 and 33:06, suddenly disappearing both times. According to Ben Norton, the cuts in the footage also cause the lights on top of a truck in the center of the frame to abruptly cut out.

Norton reports, “At 33:08, the exact same footage from 32:37 is repeated, followed by the same white car at 33:17. Similar edits and loops are made throughout the video. Someone clearly cut footage out and looped part of the video in order to correspond with the recorded audio of Texas state trooper Brian Encinia speaking. Who exactly edited the footage is unknown, but the video was recorded by police and released by the Texas Department of Public Safety.”

An independent autopsy has been performed, and Trooper Brian Encinia has been placed on administrative duties after Texas Department of Public Safety officials found “violations of procedures regarding traffic stops and the department’s courtesy policy.” Bland is the third Black women to have died in police custody, with officials claiming the women committed suicide but family and community members believing otherwise.

Bland was a Black Lives Matter activist who had moved to Prairie View to start a new job at her alma mater Prairie View A&M.

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