The dashboard-camera video that the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) released late Tuesday of Sandra Bland's July 10 arrest is 52 minutes long. Still it didn't take long before a writer and documentary maker named Ben Norton noticed some oddities in the video:
He's right. Oddly, while the video loops, the audio keeps going uninterrupted. Here's one of the more obvious examples, starting at the 25:05 mark in the DPS video:
DPS did not mention any edits to the video when it posted it online, and when NBC News asked about the anomalies, DPS spokesman Tom Vinger said: "I will have to check in the morning. I can't speculate without looking at the CD" that contained the original footage.
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Even before the mysterious apparent edits, the video was drawing scrutiny because of the questions it raised about why Texas State Trooper Brian Encinia arrested Bland, who was black. In the video, Encina demands that Bland get out of her car, and when Bland asked why she was being arrested, he pulled out his Taser and yelled: "Get out of the car! I will light you up!" Bland, 28 and starting a new job, was found dead in her jail cell on July 13. The state coroner has ruled it a suicide.
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