BATTON ROUGE, Louisiana (AP) – The US Department of Justice is launching a large-scale investigation into the civil rights of Louisiana State Police amid growing evidence that the agency has a model to watch the other side in the face of beatings of mostly black men, including the deadly arrest of Ronald Green in 2019
A federal model or practice investigation announced Thursday followed an Associated Press investigation that found Green’s arrest among at least a dozen cases in the past decade in which U.S. police officers or their bosses ignored or concealed evidence of beatings. , reject guilt and thwart efforts to eradicate misconduct. Dozens of current and former servicemen said the beatings were backed by a culture of impunity, nepotism and, in some cases, outright racism.
“We find a significant reason to start this investigation now. . Of justice. She added that there were also reports of soldiers targeting black people in the movement and using “racial insults and racially degrading terms”.
The federal investigation, the first such action against a state-wide law enforcement agency in more than two decades, comes more than three years after white soldiers were caught on a long-delayed video from the camera of a body beating, stunning and dragging Green on a rural roadside near Monroe. Despite ongoing, ongoing federal and state criminal investigations into fallen soldiers initially charged with car crash, no one has been charged.
The AP report found that soldiers made it a habit to turn off or mute body chambers during the chase. When footage is recorded, the agency routinely refuses to release it. And a recently retired supervisor who observed a particularly violent group of soldiers told internal investigators last year that it was “common practice” to stamp reports of the use of force by officers without ever watching video from the body’s camera.
In some cases, soldiers omitted the use of force as blows to the head from official reports, while in others soldiers tried to justify their actions by claiming that the suspects were violent, resisting or fleeing, all of which were refuted by videos. .
“This systematic violation was blessed by the Louisiana High Police Department,” said Alana Odoms, executive director of the Louisiana ACLU. She described the agency’s “culture of violence, terror and discrimination” as Green’s death as “the tip of the iceberg”.
Clark said the “model or practice” civil inquiry is aimed at carrying out the necessary reforms, if necessary, through a lawsuit to enforce a federal consent decree. She added that Gov. John Bell Edwards and Louisiana State Police Chief Lamar Davis had promised to co-operate.
Davis, in an internal email received by the AP, told soldiers to “keep their heads high” and embrace federal control. “We have nothing to hide and we can only benefit from learning,” he wrote.
Edwards issued a statement Thursday welcoming the investigation. “It is deeply troubling that there are allegations of systemic violations that would necessitate this type of investigation,” he said. on public safety have been restored. “
Black leaders have been urging the Justice Department for months to launch a broader investigation into potential racial profiling by the predominantly white state police, similar to other investigations launched last year in Minneapolis, Louisville and Phoenix.
According to him, 67% of the use of force by the US police in recent years has been against blacks, who make up 33% of the state’s population.
The action comes as Edwards prepares to testify before a bipartisan group of state lawmakers investigating Green’s death. The AP reported last month that the Democratic governor and his lawyers had watched a private video showing Green taking her last breaths during her fatal arrest – footage that reached prosecutors almost two years after Green’s death at 10 May 2019
Federal prosecutors are also still investigating whether police obstructed justice to protect soldiers in the Green case – and whether they sought to conceal evidence of soldiers beating other black drivers.
Kevin Reeves, the head of the state police at the time of Green’s arrest, denied that the death had been concealed, but current commanders told lawmakers investigating the state’s response that it was. The agency’s own expert on using force called what the soldiers did to Green “torture and murder.”
The AP also found that a former soldier involved in three separate beatings, Jacob Brown, had calculated 23 uses of force since 2015, 19 of which were related to blacks. In a case that led to federal allegations, Brown was seen on video by a body camera beating Aaron Larry Bowman 18 times with a flashlight after lawmakers stopped him for violating the road in 2019. State police are investigating the attack for 536 days. late, and did so only after a case by Bowman, who was left with a head wound and a broken jaw, ribs and wrist.
“Finally !!!” Bowman’s lawyer, Donesia Banks-Miley, said in a text message after hearing about the model or practice investigation. “We still need transparency and accountability to help restore the pain that continues to occur with the LSP and other law enforcement agencies.”
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Bleiberg reported from Uwalde, Texas.
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Contact the AP Investigative Team at Investigative@ap.org or
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