Governor noticed deadly 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 nonetheless simmering over the killing of George Floyd, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards and his prime legal professionals gathered in a state police convention room in October 2020 to arrange for the fallout from a troubling case closer to residence: troopers’ lethal arrest of Ronald Greene.

There, they privately watched a vital body-camera video of the Black motorist’s violent arrest that showed a bruised and bloody Greene going limp and drawing his remaining breaths — footage that prosecutors, detectives and health workers 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 proof was promptly turned over to authorities, an Associated Press investigation based on interviews and records 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 ability to cost the white troopers seen beautiful, punching and dragging Greene.

That video, which showed vital moments and audio absent from other footage that was turned over, wouldn’t attain prosecutors until practically two years after Greene’s Could 10, 2019, demise on a rural roadside close to Monroe. Now three years have handed, and after prolonged, 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 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 dying that troopers initially blamed on a automotive crash have grow to be questions which have dogged his administration for months. Edwards and his employees are expected to be known as inside weeks to testify underneath oath before a bipartisan legislative committee probing the case and a doable cover-up.

Edwards’ attorneys say there was no means 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 proof.

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 until a detective discovered it almost accidentally six months later. Whereas U.S. Justice Department officials refused to comment, the head of the state police, Col. Lamar Davis, informed the AP that his records present that the video was turned over to federal authorities about the identical time, mid-April 2021.

Edwards, a lawyer from a long line of Louisiana sheriffs, did not make himself accessible for an interview. But his chief counsel, Matthew Block, acknowledged to the AP that it was not acceptable for evidence to be out there to the governor and never the officers investigating the case. The governor’s employees also careworn that state police, not Edwards’ workplace, truly possessed the video.

“I can’t go back and fix what was finished,” Block said. “Everybody would agree that if there would have been some understanding that the district legal professional didn't have a chunk of proof, whether it was a video or whatever it could be, then, in fact, the district attorney should have all of the proof in the case. In fact.”

At situation is the 30-minute body-camera footage from Lt. John Clary, the highest-ranking trooper to reply to Greene’s arrest. It's one of two movies of the incident, and captured occasions not seen on the 46-minute clip from Trooper Dakota DeMoss that shows troopers swarming Greene’s automobile after a high-speed chase, repeatedly jolting him with stun weapons, beating him within the head and dragging him by his ankle shackles. Throughout 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 probably even more important to the investigations because it's the only footage that reveals the moment a handcuffed, bloody Greene moans beneath the load of two troopers, twitches after which goes still. It also reveals troopers ordering the heavyset, 49-year-old to remain face down on the ground together with his palms and toes restrained for more than 9 minutes — a tactic use-of-force experts criticized as dangerous and likely to have restricted his breathing.

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

The state police’s personal use-of-force knowledgeable highlighted the importance of the Clary footage during testimony during which he characterised 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 begins kicking up,” Sgt. Scott Davis informed lawmakers in March. “The same factor occurred in the George Floyd trial. There was a pulmonologist who said that’s the second of his death. The identical thing happened with Ronald Greene.”

Clary’s video reached state police inner affairs officers more than a yr after Greene’s death after they opened a probe and later showed it to the governor. But it was lengthy unknown to detectives working the criminal case and missing from the preliminary investigative case file they turned over to prosecutors in August 2019. Its absence has grow to be a focal point within the federal probe, which is trying not solely on the actions of the troopers but whether 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 an alternative gave investigators a thumb drive of different troopers’ videos.

State police say Clary correctly uploaded his body-camera footage to an internet proof storage system and the then-head of the agency, Col. Kevin Reeves, defended his administration’s handling of the Greene case.

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

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

Albert Paxton, the now-retired lead detective on the Greene case, mentioned he didn’t study the video existed till April 2021 when Davis, who had broad entry to body-camera video because the company’s use-of-force professional, 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 respond 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 high attorneys Block and Tina Vanichchagorn went to a state police constructing in Baton Rouge and watched videos of the arrest, including the Clary video, the governor’s workplace mentioned.

Days later, the governor’s legal professionals flew with Reeves and different police brass 200 miles north to Ruston to discuss the movies with John Belton, the Union Parish district attorney leading the state investigation.

The Oct. 13 meeting was meant to plan a closed-door occasion the next day through which Greene’s family would meet the governor and examine footage of the arrest. Although the meeting was about displaying video of the arrest, it never emerged that the governor’s legal professionals and police commanders have been all aware of the Clary footage while prosecutors were at the hours of darkness.

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

Block agreed, saying, “We didn’t undergo what occurred on the videos.”

That settlement falls aside over what happened the subsequent day.

Greene’s household says it was not shown the Clary video after assembly Edwards on Oct. 14, a declare Belton and several others who attended the viewing in Baton Rouge affirmed. State police and the governor’s workplace, nonetheless, disputed that, saying the Clary video was actually 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 household, recalled the response he received once they requested if there was a Clary video: “We had been told it was of no evidentiary worth.”

“The fact is we never saw it,” added Mona Hardin, Greene’s mom. “They’ve tried to have total control of the narrative.”

Throughout this process, Edwards had thought-about making the Greene arrest movies public, information show, however decided towards it at the request of federal prosecutors. After they have been withheld from the general public greater than two years, the AP obtained and printed each the DeMoss and Clary movies in May 2021.

An AP investigation that followed discovered Greene’s was amongst a minimum of a dozen cases over the previous decade in which 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 have been countenanced by a tradition of impunity, nepotism and, in some instances, outright racism.

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

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

After the videos have been revealed, the governor broke his silence and known as the troopers’ actions prison. In latest months, as his function within the Greene case has come below scrutiny, Edwards has gone further to describe 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 till spring of 2021. But Edwards insisted as recently as February that evidence turned over to prosecutors prior to his November 2019 re-election was proof there was no cover-up.

“The details are clear that the proof of what happened that evening was introduced to prosecutors nicely before my election, state and federal prosecutors,” Edwards stated in a information conference.

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

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Contact AP’s global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org.