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PICTURED: Sandra Bland (Image: Facebook)

NEWLY RELEASED video footage of Sandra Bland’s arrest sparks calls for investigation into her death to be reopened.

In 2015, Bland was pulled over by police in Texas for failing to signal a lane change. Three days after her arrest, she was found dead in a Texas jail cell. Authorities ruled her death a suicide.

The video footage, which was filmed by Bland on her mobile, documents the moments she was arrested by state trooper Brian Encinia. It has been made public almost four years after the 28-year-old’s death and almost two years since the trial of the trooper who arrested her.

In the video clip, the trooper can be heard shouting: “I will light you up.” He also repeatedly shouts at Bland to get out of the car while pointing his taser at her.

The officer repeatedly tells Bland to put her phone down but she tells him she has a right to record. The video ends after the camera points to the ground.

The short clip is the first to be made public of Bland’s point of view of the arrest. Police dash cam footage was previously released after her death.

Local authorities kept this cell phone video from Sandra Bland a secret for 4 years. Local journalists @WFAA fought to get it released.

Sandra Bland knew her rights. She never should've been arrested and threatened in the first place. A gross abuse of power from this officer. pic.twitter.com/rtVTxQKDye

— Shaun King (@shaunking) May 7, 2019

Bland’s family have said they had not previously seen the footage and only viewed it when it was shown to them by WFAA, the local news organisation that uncovered it.

Sharon Cooper, Bland’s sister told CNN’s Don Lemon: “In Sandra’s instance in particular where she’s literally speaking for herself even beyond her grave through the ability for her to have ownership over her space and agency over her body by recording on her phone and so I think that what we are seeing is that even those who are being impacted by situations where there’s excessive use of force, there is indelible proof these things are happening and so there is an effort to conceal such things in a hope to not reveal some of the bad behaviour that continues to go on by some law enforcement officials with regard to engaging with citizens, especially those citizens of colour.”

Cooper said the release of the video, which the family had not previously been aware of throughout the duration of the case, put the family’s trust and faith in the authorities on “shaky ground”.

Encinia faced a perjury charge after a grand jury found that he did not remove Bland from her vehicle because he feared for his safety as he had claimed.

He was fired in the aftermath of the outrage in response to Bland’s death and the charges against him were later dropped.

Texas state representative Garnet Coleman, who passed the Sandra Bland Act which includes new de-escalation training for law enforcement, said he will be holding a hearing in light of the new evidence.

Presidential candidates Julián Castro and Beto O'Rourke are among those calling for the investigation into Bland’s death to be reopened.

“Immediately re-open the investigation into Sandra Bland's arrest and death. There must be full accountability and justice,” O’Rourke tweeted.

“The recently released video Sandra Bland took of her own arrest provides the latest example of a police justification for the death of an unarmed black person being revealed as a flat out lie,” Castro said.

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