Authorities in Texas said Wednesday that a technical glitch, not intentional editing, caused the irregularities in a 52-minute dashcam video of the traffic stop and arrest of Sandra Bland, who was found hanged in her jail cell three days later.
Tom Vinger, a spokesman for the Department of Public Safety, blamed a “technical issue during posting.” He said that the department was working to correct the video.
At several points, the video repeats itself or is cut, while the audio continues uninterrupted. The department posted the video to YouTube on Tuesday.
The video shows an escalating confrontation between Bland and Brian Encinia, a state trooper, on July 10 after he stopped her for failing to signal a lane change. At one point, the trooper draws his Taser and shouts: “Get out of the car! I will light you up!”
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None of the irregularities in the video appear in the 14 minutes that show Bland’s arrest and the confrontation.
But in one section of the video, a tow truck driver walks toward the trooper’s cruiser, then out of the frame, then reappears and completes the same walk seconds later. In another section, a white car appears, disappears from the frame, then appears again.
On the morning of July 13, Bland was found hanging from a partition in her jail cell, a plastic trash can liner around her neck. Police have said she killed herself. Her death has raised suspicions among her family and become the latest rallying cry among activists outraged by the treatment of blacks by law enforcement. Steven McCraw, the director of the Department of Public Safety, told reporters Tuesday that the trooper did not comply with procedure, including by failing to let Bland know what action he planned to take and by failing to be courteous and professional. The trooper has been placed on administrative leave. Erin McClam contributed. This article originally appeared on NBCNews.com.
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