DALLAS – State Senator Royce West is the newest voice in the growing questions around the hanging death of Sandra Bland.
"I'm concerned. I'm very concerned about it," the Dallas Democrat told News 8. "Not too many people get put in jail for failure to signal a lane change, so there's gotta be more to it than that."
A video on YouTube shows the end of the traffic stop in Waller last Friday with a state trooper and deputy sheriff holding the 28-year-old woman on the ground.
They charged her with assault on a public servant — a third-degree felony.
But Sen. West wants to see what started the situation.
Late Thursday afternoon, he sent a letter to the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety asking for the trooper's dash cam video to be made public.
"We have a lady that was starting a new career, a new chapter in her life and that chapter now ends up in death," West said.
He said DPS agreed to likely release the video, if Bland's family gives permission.
Bland just moved back to Texas from Chicago. She was returning to her alma mater at Prairie View A&M University to start a new job. But Monday morning — three days after she was arrested — jailers found Bland hanged in her cell by a plastic trash bag.
Elton Mathis, the Waller County District Attorney, said Thursday afternoon that he's investigating an online video which appears to be Bland in March self-diagnosing with depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.
"That is, of course, extremely relevant -- that she may have been suffering from some sort of mental illness," Mathis said.
There was no camera in her cell, he added, but Mathis said surveillance video from outside showed no one entering her area.
The county sheriff asked the Texas Rangers to take over the case, and the FBI agreed to monitor the work in an investigation everyone agrees is needed.
