Louisiana Cops Finally Charged For Ronald Greene’s Murder

As the United States con­tin­ue to crit­i­cize oth­er nations and their law enforce­ment agen­cies for what they char­ac­ter­ize as human rights abus­es these are the inci­dents that are hap­pen­ing right here in the good old USA.
Police offi­cers not only mur­der peo­ple of col­or for minor traf­fic infrac­tions, but their supe­ri­ors also cov­ered it up. Even polit­i­cal lead­ers help dis­tort the truth and mis­lead the vic­tim’s families.(mb)

Five Louisiana cops were charged Thursday with state crimes rang­ing from neg­li­gent homi­cide to malfea­sance in the dead­ly 2019 arrest of Ronald Greene, a death author­i­ties ini­tial­ly blamed on a car crash before long-sup­pressed body-cam­era video showed white offi­cers beat­ing, stun­ning and drag­ging the Black motorist as he wailed, “I’m scared!”
These are the first crim­i­nal charges of any kind to emerge from Greene’s bloody death on a road­side in rur­al north­east Louisiana, a case that got lit­tle atten­tion until an Associated Press inves­ti­ga­tion exposed a cov­er-up and prompt­ed scruti­ny of top Louisiana State Police brass, a sweep­ing U.S. Justice Department review of the agency and a leg­isla­tive inquiry look­ing at what Gov. John Bel Edwards knew and when he knew it.
“We’re all excit­ed for the indict­ments but are they actu­al­ly going to pay for it?” said Greene’s moth­er, Mona Hardin, who for more than three years has kept the pres­sure on state and fed­er­al inves­ti­ga­tors and vowed not to bury the cre­mat­ed remains of her “Ronnie” until she gets jus­tice. “As hap­py as we are, we want some­thing to stick.”

Facing the most seri­ous charges from a state grand jury was Master Trooper Kory York, who was seen on the body-cam­era footage drag­ging Greene by his ankle shack­les, putting his foot on his back to force him down, and leav­ing the heavy­set man face down in the dirt for more than nine min­utes. Use-of-force experts say these actions could have dan­ger­ous­ly restrict­ed Greene’s breath­ing, and the state police’s own force instruc­tor called the troop­ers’ actions “tor­ture and mur­der.” York was charged with neg­li­gent homi­cide and ten counts of malfea­sance in office.
The oth­ers who faced var­i­ous counts of malfea­sance and obstruc­tion includ­ed a troop­er who denied the exis­tence of his body-cam­era footage, anoth­er who exag­ger­at­ed Greene’s resis­tance on the scene, a region­al state police com­man­der who detec­tives say pres­sured them not to make an arrest in the case and a Union Parish sheriff’s deputy heard on the video taunt­ing Greene with the words “s — - hurts, doesn’t it?” “These actions are inex­cus­able and have no place in pro­fes­sion­al pub­lic safe­ty ser­vices,” the head of the state police, Col. Lamar Davis, said after the indict­ments, adding that his agency has in recent years made improve­ments aimed at “rebuild­ing trust with­in the com­mu­ni­ties we serve.”
Union Parish District Attorney John Belton sub­mit­ted arrest war­rants for all five cops, prais­ing the racial­ly mixed grand jury for hear­ing the evi­dence and say­ing the peo­ple had spoken.

Belton had long held off on pur­su­ing state charges at the request of the U.S. Justice Department, which is con­duct­ing a sep­a­rate crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion. But as years passed and fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors grew increas­ing­ly skep­ti­cal they could prove the offi­cers act­ed “will­ful­ly” — a key com­po­nent of the civ­il rights charges they’ve been con­sid­er­ing — they gave Belton the go-ahead this spring to con­vene a state grand jury. That pan­el since last month con­sid­ered detailed evi­dence and tes­ti­mo­ny relat­ed to the troop­ers’ use of force and their deci­sion to leave the hand­cuffed Greene prone for sev­er­al min­utes before ren­der­ing aid. And for the first time in the case, a med­ical expert deemed Greene’s death a homicide.
The fed­er­al grand jury inves­ti­ga­tion, which expand­ed last year to exam­ine whether state police brass obstruct­ed jus­tice to pro­tect the troop­ers, remains open, and pros­e­cu­tors have been tight-lipped about when the pan­el could make a deci­sion on charges.
Greene’s May 10, 2019, death was shroud­ed in secre­cy from the begin­ning, when author­i­ties told griev­ing rel­a­tives that the 49-year-old died in a car crash at the end of a high-speed chase near Monroe — an account ques­tioned by both his fam­i­ly and even an emer­gency room doc­tor who not­ed Greene’s bat­tered body. Still, a coroner’s report list­ed Greene’s cause of death as a motor vehi­cle acci­dent, a state police crash report omit­ted any men­tion of troop­ers using force and 462 days would pass before state police began an inter­nal probe.

All the while, the body-cam­era video remained so secret it was with­held from Greene’s ini­tial autop­sy and offi­cials from Edwards on down declined repeat­ed requests to release it, cit­ing ongo­ing inves­ti­ga­tions.
But then last year, the AP obtained and pub­lished the footage, which showed what real­ly hap­pened: Troopers swarm­ing Greene’s car, stun­ning him repeat­ed­ly, punch­ing him in the head, drag­ging him by the shack­les and leav­ing him prone on the ground for more than nine min­utes. At times, Greene could be heard plead­ing for mer­cy and wail­ing, “I’m your broth­er! I’m scared! I’m scared!” At one point, York orders Greene to “lay on your f — — bel­ly like I told you to!” Union Parish Sheriff’s Deputy Christopher Harpin can be heard taunt­ing, “Yeah, yeah, that s— hurts, doesn’t it?”
Attorneys for York and Harpin said both expect to be found not guilty at tri­al if the charges aren’t dis­missed first. Reached by phone, for­mer Trooper Dakota DeMoss, whose body-cam­era cap­tured much of the arrest, declined to com­ment, say­ing “you guys always get it wrong.” Lt. John Clary’s attor­ney did not respond to a request for com­ment in the cour­t­house. Former state police Capt. John Peters declined to com­ment. Fallout brought fed­er­al scruti­ny not just to the troop­ers but to whether top brass obstruct­ed jus­tice to pro­tect them.
Investigators have focused on a meet­ing in which detec­tives say that state police com­man­ders pres­sured them to hold off on arrest­ing a troop­er seen on body-cam­era video strik­ing Greene in the head and lat­er boast­ing, “I beat the ever-liv­ing f— out of him.” That troop­er, Chris Hollingsworth, was wide­ly seen as the most cul­pa­ble of the half-dozen offi­cers involved, but he died in a high-speed, sin­gle-vehi­cle crash in 2020 just hours after he was informed he would be fired over his role in Greene’s arrest.

The AP lat­er found that Greene’s arrest was among at least a dozen cas­es over the past decade in which state police troop­ers or their boss­es ignored or con­cealed evi­dence of beat­ings of most­ly Black men, deflect­ed blame and imped­ed efforts to root out mis­con­duct. Dozens of cur­rent and for­mer troop­ers said the beat­ings were coun­te­nanced by a cul­ture of impuni­ty, nepo­tism and, in some cas­es, racism. Such reports were cit­ed by the U.S. Justice Department this year in launch­ing a sweep­ing civ­il rights inves­ti­ga­tion into the Louisiana State Police, the first “pat­tern or prac­tice” probe of a statewide law enforce­ment agency in more than two decades. Scrutiny has also turned to the actions of the Democratic gov­er­nor, who over­sees the state police.
A leg­isla­tive pan­el launched an “all-lev­els” inves­ti­ga­tion into the state’s han­dling of the Greene case this year after AP report­ed that Edwards had been informed with­in hours that the troop­ers arrest­ing Greene engaged in a “vio­lent, lengthy strug­gle,” yet stayed most­ly silent for two years as police con­tin­ued to press the car crash theory.

Another AP report found Edwards pri­vate­ly watched a key body-cam­era video of Greene’s dead­ly arrest six months before state pros­e­cu­tors say they knew it even exist­ed, and nei­ther the gov­er­nor, his staff nor the state police act­ed urgent­ly to get the footage into the hands of those with the pow­er to bring charges.
Edwards has repeat­ed­ly said he did noth­ing to influ­ence or hin­der the Greene inves­ti­ga­tion and has described the troop­ers’ actions as both crim­i­nal and racist. But he has yet to tes­ti­fy before the leg­isla­tive pan­el, say­ing he was unable to appear at a hear­ing last month, instead attend­ing a ground­break­ing cer­e­mo­ny for an infra­struc­ture project. “Today’s deci­sion is a long over­due first step toward jus­tice for Ronald Greene’s fam­i­ly and account­abil­i­ty for a bro­ken police sys­tem,” said Alanah Odoms, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the ACLU of Louisiana. “Ronald Greene should be alive today.”

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