Governor saw deadly arrest video months before prosecutors

By JIM MUSTIAN and JAKE BLEIBERG

https://apnews.com/article/death-of-ronald-greene-politics-arrests-race-and-ethnicity-racial-injustice-599fae0d1018e0632554043f4e5b8fd3

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — With racial tensions still simmering over the killing of George Floyd, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards and his prime lawyers gathered in a state police convention room in October 2020 to organize for the fallout from a troubling case nearer to dwelling: troopers’ deadly arrest of Ronald Greene.

There, they privately watched a crucial body-camera video of the Black motorist’s violent arrest that showed a bruised and bloody Greene going limp and drawing his closing breaths — footage that prosecutors, detectives and health workers wouldn’t even know existed for an additional six months.

While the Democratic governor has distanced himself from allegations of a cover-up in the explosive case by contending evidence was promptly turned over to authorities, an Associated Press investigation based mostly on interviews and information found that wasn’t the case with the 30-minute video he watched. Neither Edwards, his workers nor the state police he oversees acted urgently to get the crucial footage into the arms of those with the power to charge the white troopers seen beautiful, punching and dragging Greene.

That video, which showed essential moments and audio absent from different footage that was turned over, wouldn’t attain prosecutors until almost two years after Greene’s May 10, 2019, loss of life on a rural roadside close to Monroe. Now three years have passed, and after prolonged, ongoing federal and state probes, still no one has been criminally charged.

“The optics are horrible for the governor. It makes him culpable on this, in delaying justice,” stated Rafael Goyeneche, a former prosecutor who is president of the Metropolitan Crime Fee, a New Orleans-based watchdog group.

“All it takes for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing,” Goyeneche added. “And that’s what the governor did, nothing.”

What the governor knew, when he knew it and what he did about an in-custody demise that troopers initially blamed on a car crash have develop into questions which have dogged his administration for months. Edwards and his staff are anticipated to be referred to as within weeks to testify under oath before a bipartisan legislative committee probing the case and a potential cover-up.

Edwards’ attorneys say there was no approach for the governor to have known on the time that the video he watched had not already been turned over to prosecutors, and there was no effort to by the governor or his workers to withhold evidence.

Regardless, the governor’s attorneys didn’t point out seeing the video in a gathering just days later with state prosecutors, who wouldn’t obtain the footage till a detective found it virtually by accident six months later. Whereas U.S. Justice Division officers refused to remark, the head of the state police, Col. Lamar Davis, instructed the AP that his information show that the video was turned over to federal authorities about the identical time, mid-April 2021.

Edwards, a lawyer from an extended line of Louisiana sheriffs, did not make himself available for an interview. But his chief counsel, Matthew Block, acknowledged to the AP that it was not acceptable for proof to be available to the governor and not the officials investigating the case. The governor’s workers additionally harassed that state police, not Edwards’ workplace, truly possessed the video.

“I can’t return and repair what was carried out,” Block mentioned. “Everyone would agree that if there would have been some understanding that the district lawyer didn't have a bit of proof, whether it was a video or no matter it is likely to be, then, of course, the district legal professional should have all the evidence within the case. Of course.”

At situation is the 30-minute body-camera footage from Lt. John Clary, the highest-ranking trooper to answer Greene’s arrest. It's considered one of two movies of the incident, and captured occasions not seen on the 46-minute clip from Trooper Dakota DeMoss that reveals troopers swarming Greene’s automotive after a high-speed chase, repeatedly jolting him with stun guns, beating him in the head and dragging him by his ankle shackles. All through the frantic scene, Greene is barely resisting, pleading for mercy and wailing, “I’m your brother! I’m scared! I’m scared!”

Trooper Dakota DeMoss' body-camera video.

But Clary’s video is maybe much more significant to the investigations as a result of it is the solely footage that exhibits the moment a handcuffed, bloody Greene moans under the burden of two troopers, twitches and then goes nonetheless. It also exhibits troopers ordering the heavyset, 49-year-old to remain face down on the ground with his hands and feet restrained for more than nine minutes — a tactic use-of-force experts criticized as dangerous and prone to have restricted his respiration.

And in contrast to the DeMoss video, which fits silent midway by means of when the microphone is turned off, Clary’s video has sound all through, picking up a trooper ordering Greene to “lay on your f------ belly like I told you to!” and a sheriff’s deputy taunting, “Yeah, yeah, that s--- hurts, doesn’t it?”

The state police’s personal use-of-force skilled highlighted the importance of the Clary footage during testimony during which he characterized the troopers’ actions as “torture and murder.”

Lt. John Clary's body-camera video.

“They’re pressing on his again at one point and Ronald Greene’s foot begins kicking up,” Sgt. Scott Davis advised lawmakers in March. “The identical factor occurred within the George Floyd trial. There was a pulmonologist who mentioned that’s the moment of his death. The same thing occurred with Ronald Greene.”

Clary’s video reached state police inside affairs officers more than a year after Greene’s dying when they opened a probe and later showed it to the governor. But it was lengthy unknown to detectives working the prison case and lacking from the preliminary investigative case file they turned over to prosecutors in August 2019. Its absence has become a focal point within the federal probe, which is wanting not solely at the actions of the troopers but whether or not state police brass obstructed justice to guard them.

Detectives say Clary falsely claimed he didn’t have any body-camera footage of his personal from Greene’s arrest and as a substitute gave investigators a thumb drive of other troopers’ videos.

State police say Clary properly uploaded his body-camera footage to an internet evidence storage system and the then-head of the company, Col. Kevin Reeves, defended his administration’s dealing with of the Greene case.

“I don’t think that there was any cover-up by state police of this matter,” Reeves, who has described Greene’s dying as “terrible however lawful,” said in recent legislative testimony.

But the detectives investigating Greene’s demise say they had been locked out of the video storage system on the time and needed to depend on Clary to provide the footage.

Albert Paxton, the now-retired lead detective on the Greene case, said he didn’t study the video existed until April 2021 when Davis, who had broad entry to body-camera video because the agency’s use-of-force skilled, made a passing reference to it in a dialog.

An internal affairs investigation into whether Clary purposely withheld the footage was inconclusive and details of the probe remain secret. Clary, who didn’t reply to requests for comment, prevented self-discipline and remains within the state police.

In early October 2020, days after AP printed audio of Trooper Chris Hollingsworth bragging that he had “beat the ever-living f--- out of” Greene, Edwards and his top attorneys Block and Tina Vanichchagorn went to a state police constructing in Baton Rouge and watched movies of the arrest, together with the Clary video, the governor’s workplace mentioned.

Days later, the governor’s legal professionals flew with Reeves and other police brass 200 miles north to Ruston to discuss the videos with John Belton, the Union Parish district legal professional main the state investigation.

The Oct. 13 assembly was supposed to plan a closed-door event the following day through which Greene’s family would meet the governor and view footage of the arrest. Though the assembly was about displaying video of the arrest, it never emerged that the governor’s legal professionals and police commanders were all conscious of the Clary footage while prosecutors have been in the dark.

“It didn’t come up at all,” Belton said, including he only knew on the time of the DeMoss video.

Block agreed, saying, “We didn’t go through what happened on the movies.”

That agreement falls apart over what occurred the following day.

Greene’s family says it was not shown the Clary video after assembly Edwards on Oct. 14, a declare Belton and a number of other others who attended the viewing in Baton Rouge affirmed. State police and the governor’s office, however, disputed that, saying the Clary video was actually proven.

However state police spokesman Capt. Nick Manale acknowledged, “The department has no proof of what was proven to the household that day.”

Lee Merritt, an legal professional for the Greene household, recalled the response he acquired after they requested if there was a Clary video: “We were informed it was of no evidentiary value.”

“The very fact is we by no means saw it,” added Mona Hardin, Greene’s mom. “They’ve tried to have total management of the narrative.”

All through this course of, Edwards had thought-about making the Greene arrest videos public, records present, but decided in opposition to it on the request of federal prosecutors. After they had been withheld from the general public more than two years, the AP obtained and printed both the DeMoss and Clary videos in May 2021.

An AP investigation that adopted found Greene’s was amongst a minimum of a dozen instances over the past decade through which state police troopers or their bosses ignored or hid proof of beatings, deflected blame and impeded efforts to root out misconduct. Dozens of current and former troopers said the beatings were countenanced by a tradition of impunity, nepotism and, in some instances, outright racism.

Edwards was knowledgeable of Greene’s deadly arrest inside hours, when he obtained a textual content message from Reeves telling him that troopers engaged in a “violent, lengthy wrestle” with a Black motorist, ending in his demise. However the governor, who was in the midst of a tight reelection race on the time, stored quiet concerning the case publicly for two years as police continued to push the narrative that Greene died in a crash.

Edwards has mentioned he first learned of the “critical allegations” surrounding Greene’s loss of life in September 2020, months after Greene’s family filed a wrongful-death lawsuit and the FBI sent a sweeping subpoena for evidence to state police.

After the movies have been revealed, the governor broke his silence and known as the troopers’ actions criminal. In recent months, as his position in the Greene case has come underneath scrutiny, Edwards has gone further to explain them as racist whereas denying he’s interfered with or delayed investigations.

The governor’s legal professionals now acknowledge prosecutors didn't have the Clary video until spring of 2021. But Edwards insisted as just lately as February that proof turned over to prosecutors prior to his November 2019 re-election was proof there was no cover-up.

“The info are clear that the evidence of what happened that night was introduced to prosecutors properly before my election, state and federal prosecutors,” Edwards stated in a information convention.

“So clearly that is not part of a cover-up.”

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Contact AP’s world investigative group at Investigative@ap.org.