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HEMPSTEAD, Texas, July 17 (UPI) -- The Texas state trooper who arrested a woman who died three days later in her jail cell was placed on administrative duty for allegedly violating policy, the Texas Department of Public Safety said Friday. The trooper, whose name was not reported, arrested Sandra Bland, 28, July 10 after a traffic stop. She was charged with assault on a public servant after allegedly becoming combatant with the officer, Waller County Sheriff Glenn Smith said.
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"We have identified violations of the department's procedures regarding traffic stops and the department's courtesy policy," the Texas DPS said in a statement Friday.
The department did not reveal what exact violations took place during the traffic stop, though a bystander took video of the incident, which appears to show a trooper pushing Bland to the ground and restraining her.
She can be heard yelling out, "You just slammed my head into the ground. Do you not even care about that? I can't even hear."
Bland died Monday in her jail cell in Hempstead in what officials are calling a suicide by asphyxiation. Law enforcement says she hanged herself using a trash bag inside her cell. Her family, though, says the woman never would have killed herself and have called for an investigation.
Sharon Cooper, one of Bland's sisters, told reporters Thursday it was "unfathomable" that her sister would kill herself.
The Texas Rangers, a division of the Texas DPS, launched an investigation, which the FBI joined Friday, USA Today reported. DPS and the Waller County district attorney's office both requested the federal agency join the probe earlier this week.
On Thursday, Texas state Sen. Royce West, a Democrat, called on DPS to release the dashboard video of the traffic stop in order to shed light on "unconfirmed information" he had that Bland had been followed by the trooper "for some distance" before the stop.
West said Bland's death was "tragic" and "suspicious" in a letter he sent to DPS Director Steven McCraw.
