Governor saw lethal arrest video months earlier than 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 top lawyers gathered in a state police convention room in October 2020 to prepare for the fallout from a troubling case nearer to dwelling: troopers’ lethal arrest of Ronald Greene.

There, they privately watched an important body-camera video of the Black motorist’s violent arrest that confirmed a bruised and bloody Greene going limp and drawing his last breaths — footage that prosecutors, detectives and medical examiners wouldn’t even know existed for another six months.

Whereas 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 Related Press investigation based mostly on interviews and data discovered that wasn’t the case with the 30-minute video he watched. Neither Edwards, his employees nor the state police he oversees acted urgently to get the crucial footage into the palms of these with the ability to cost the white troopers seen stunning, punching and dragging Greene.

That video, which showed important moments and audio absent from other footage that was turned over, wouldn’t attain prosecutors until almost two years after Greene’s May 10, 2019, demise on a rural roadside close to Monroe. Now three years have passed, and after lengthy, ongoing federal and state probes, nonetheless 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's 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 loss of life that troopers initially blamed on a automobile crash have develop into questions that have dogged his administration for months. Edwards and his staff are anticipated to be called inside weeks to testify below oath earlier than a bipartisan legislative committee probing the case and a attainable cover-up.

Edwards’ attorneys say there was no method for the governor to have known at 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 staff to withhold evidence.

Regardless, the governor’s attorneys didn’t mention seeing the video in a gathering simply days later with state prosecutors, who wouldn’t receive the footage till a detective found it almost by chance six months later. Whereas U.S. Justice Department officers refused to comment, the head of the state police, Col. Lamar Davis, instructed the AP that his data show that the video was turned over to federal authorities about the same time, mid-April 2021.

Edwards, a lawyer from an extended line of Louisiana sheriffs, didn't make himself available for an interview. However his chief counsel, Matthew Block, acknowledged to the AP that it was not acceptable for evidence to be obtainable to the governor and never the officers investigating the case. The governor’s employees also pressured that state police, not Edwards’ office, truly possessed the video.

“I can’t go back and repair what was achieved,” Block stated. “Everyone would agree that if there would have been some understanding that the district legal professional didn't have a chunk of proof, whether or not it was a video or no matter it is likely to be, then, in fact, the district legal professional ought to have all the proof in the case. In fact.”

At problem is the 30-minute body-camera footage from Lt. John Clary, the highest-ranking trooper to respond to Greene’s arrest. It is 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 automobile after a high-speed chase, repeatedly jolting him with stun guns, beating him within 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.

However Clary’s video is perhaps much more vital to the investigations because it is the only footage that exhibits the moment a handcuffed, bloody Greene moans underneath the load of two troopers, twitches and then goes nonetheless. It also reveals troopers ordering the heavyset, 49-year-old to stay face down on the bottom along with his arms and toes restrained for more than 9 minutes — a tactic use-of-force experts criticized as dangerous and prone to have restricted his respiratory.

And in contrast to the DeMoss video, which works silent halfway via when the microphone is turned off, Clary’s video has sound throughout, picking up a trooper ordering Greene to “lay in 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 throughout testimony through which he characterized the troopers’ actions as “torture and homicide.”

Lt. John Clary's body-camera video.

“They’re urgent on his back at one point and Ronald Greene’s foot starts kicking up,” Sgt. Scott Davis instructed lawmakers in March. “The same thing occurred in the George Floyd trial. There was a pulmonologist who stated that’s the moment of his demise. The same factor occurred with Ronald Greene.”

Clary’s video reached state police internal affairs officers greater than a yr after Greene’s death when they opened a probe and later confirmed it to the governor. Nevertheless it was lengthy unknown to detectives working the criminal case and missing from the initial investigative case file they turned over to prosecutors in August 2019. Its absence has turn out to be a focus within the federal probe, which is trying not solely on 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 own from Greene’s arrest and as a substitute gave investigators a thumb drive of different troopers’ videos.

State police say Clary correctly uploaded his body-camera footage to a web-based proof 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 demise as “awful but lawful,” stated in latest legislative testimony.

However the detectives investigating Greene’s death say they were locked out of the video storage system at the time and had to depend on Clary to provide the footage.

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

An inner 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 remark, prevented 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 prime attorneys Block and Tina Vanichchagorn went to a state police building in Baton Rouge and watched videos of the arrest, together with the Clary video, the governor’s office stated.

Days later, the governor’s attorneys flew with Reeves and different police brass 200 miles north to Ruston to debate the movies 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 think about footage of the arrest. Though the assembly was about showing video of the arrest, it by no means emerged that the governor’s lawyers and police commanders had been all aware of the Clary footage while prosecutors have been at midnight.

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

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

That settlement falls apart over what happened the subsequent day.

Greene’s household says it was not shown the Clary video after meeting Edwards on Oct. 14, a claim Belton and several other others who attended the viewing in Baton Rouge affirmed. State police and the governor’s workplace, nonetheless, disputed that, saying the Clary video was the truth is proven.

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

Lee Merritt, an attorney for the Greene family, recalled the response he received when they asked if there was a Clary video: “We have been told it was of no evidentiary value.”

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

Throughout this course of, Edwards had considered making the Greene arrest videos public, data present, but decided towards it on the request of federal prosecutors. After they had been withheld from the public greater than two years, the AP obtained and published each the DeMoss and Clary videos in May 2021.

An AP investigation that followed found Greene’s was among not less than a dozen circumstances over the previous decade wherein state police troopers or their bosses ignored or hid evidence of beatings, deflected blame and impeded efforts to root out misconduct. Dozens of current and former troopers stated the beatings were countenanced by a culture of impunity, nepotism and, in some instances, outright racism.

Edwards was informed of Greene’s lethal arrest within hours, when he acquired a text message from Reeves telling him that troopers engaged in a “violent, lengthy battle” with a Black motorist, ending in his dying. However the governor, who was within the midst of a tight reelection race at the time, saved quiet concerning the case publicly for 2 years as police continued to push the narrative that Greene died in a crash.

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

After the videos had been revealed, the governor broke his silence and referred to as the troopers’ actions felony. In latest months, as his position in the Greene case has come under scrutiny, Edwards has gone further to explain them as racist whereas denying he’s interfered with or delayed investigations.

The governor’s lawyers now acknowledge prosecutors didn't have the Clary video till spring of 2021. But Edwards insisted as recently as February that proof turned over to prosecutors previous to his November 2019 re-election was proof there was no cover-up.

“The info are clear that the proof of what occurred that evening was presented to prosecutors properly earlier than my election, state and federal prosecutors,” Edwards stated in a news conference.

“So obviously that's not a part of a cover-up.”

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Contact AP’s international investigative staff at Investigative@ap.org.