AUSTIN, Texas — Lawmakers grilled Texas Department of Public Safety officials Friday during a hearing about never-before-seen cellphone video Sandra Bland recorded during a 2015 traffic stop.
State Rep. Garnet Coleman, of Houston, said he wanted to host the House committee hearing after WFAA, in partnership with The Investigative Network, released the 39-second cellphone footage this month.
Lawmakers questioned whether the video was hidden from Bland's family, their attorneys and legislators.
Even after the nearly two hour hearing, Coleman said he still has more questions and will likely host another hearing about the cellphone video.
In the cellphone footage, DPS Trooper Brian Encinia, who was later fired, is heard saying: "I will light you up. Get out. Now."
At the time, his Taser was drawn and pointed at Bland.
Three days after the video was recorded and Bland was taken into custody, she was found dead in a Waller County jail cell. Her death was ruled a suicide.
She was pulled over by Encinia for not signaling a lane change and was charged with assaulting a public servant after Encinia claimed he was kicked.
However, dashcam footage of the incident raised questions about how Encinia handled the situation and how he responded when Bland questioned why she was pulled over.
He was fired after being indicted for making false statements about the circumstances surrounding the stop. The charge against Encinia after he agreed to give up his peace officer license.
Wrongful death lawsuit
Geneva Reed-Veal, Bland's mother, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against DPS, Waller County, and Encinia in federal court. Court records show family attorneys repeatedly asked for all videos, sound and tape recordings.
However, attorney Cannon Lambert said he never saw the 39-second cellphone footage until the nonprofit Investigative Network brought it to his attention.
The family claimed DPS and the Texas attorney general never turned it over during their federal civil rights lawsuit.
"No wonder they wanted to settle it so quick. They're sitting on this crap," Lambert said.
DPS suggested the Bland family and their lawyers simply missed Bland's cellphone video. In a statement, DPS officials said they "complied with its discovery obligations in the civil litigation."
"Any claim of 'concealment' of this video is demonstrably false and should be corrected," said Texas DPS spokesperson Katherine Cesinger.
Evidence not withheld
DPS Director Steven Mccraw and Phillip Adkins, who serves as general counsel for the department, told a Texas House committee Friday that DPS has not illegally withheld evidence from Bland's family or her legal team of six attorneys.
"The video that she recorded during the traffic stop was provided to counsel representing Ms. Bland's family by attorneys representing Waller County. This occurred on Oct. 30, 2015," Adkins said.
Adkins could barely finish his statement before Coleman, the state representative, cut him off.
Coleman introduced the Sandra Bland Act, which was signed into law in June 2017. The law mandates county jails send people with mental health and substance abuse issues into treatment.
The act also requires that an independent police agency investigate jail deaths.
Coleman had never seen Bland's cell phone video until WFAA's report and questioned why DPS never gave it to him.
RELATED: Texas lawmakers hold House hearing Friday to seek answers about new Sandra Bland cellphone video
The representative was given a disc with privileged information regarding Bland's arrest and death while he was writing the bill but he never found her cell phone footage on it, Coleman said.
"Did you release the video? To whom? Did you release it to the public?" Coleman asked.
"Sir, we released it to a television station, KXAN," Adkins replied.
The video was handed over to Brian Collister at the TV station in 2017, months after the civil suit had already been settled in 2016.
As part of the settlement, Bland's family had to return all discovery.
"Did you send it to me?" Coleman asked Adkins. "Was the video in that disc?"
"I don't know that it was," Adkins replied.
"I tried to get into that disc you sent me and I couldn't make heads or tails of it," Coleman said. "Do you think that's an appropriate way to send information to a legislator?"
Adkins replied, "We can't know what it is that you want to look at."
"Sir we had all of these hearings, you knew what I wanted to look at," Coleman said.
'We absolutely complied'
Near the end of the hearing, Nichole Bunker Henderson, the associate deputy attorney general for civil litigation, told the committee that discovery information wasn't indexed when given to the attorneys representing Bland's family.
"We are conceding that it was not indexed," Henderson said.
That response may explain why counsel for Bland's family may not have found the video in the data dump they received.
Coleman maintained that seeing the cell phone video would have provided context about Encinia's actions.
"If you didn't comply with the discovery, that's disbarment," Coleman told Henderson.
"We absolutely complied," they replied.
Coleman fired back, "I'm just saying you might want to go back and make sure you did."