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 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’ lethal 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 ultimate 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 within the explosive case by contending proof was promptly turned over to authorities, an Associated Press investigation based mostly on interviews and records found that wasn’t the case with the 30-minute video he watched. Neither Edwards, his staff nor the state police he oversees acted urgently to get the crucial footage into the fingers of those with the power to cost the white troopers seen gorgeous, punching and dragging Greene.

That video, which confirmed vital moments and audio absent from other footage that was turned over, wouldn’t reach prosecutors till nearly two years after Greene’s Could 10, 2019, loss of life on a rural roadside near 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 in this, in delaying justice,” said 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 males 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 automotive crash have turn out to be 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 earlier than a bipartisan legislative committee probing the case and a doable cover-up.

Edwards’ attorneys say there was no manner for the governor to have recognized 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 staff to withhold proof.

Regardless, the governor’s attorneys didn’t mention seeing the video in a meeting just days later with state prosecutors, who wouldn’t obtain the footage till a detective discovered it nearly by chance six months later. Whereas U.S. Justice Department officials refused to remark, the pinnacle of the state police, Col. Lamar Davis, informed the AP that his data present 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, did not make himself out there for an interview. However his chief counsel, Matthew Block, acknowledged to the AP that it was not acceptable for proof to be available to the governor and never the officers investigating the case. The governor’s staff additionally burdened that state police, not Edwards’ workplace, truly possessed the video.

“I can’t go back and repair what was executed,” Block said. “Everyone would agree that if there would have been some understanding that the district attorney didn't have a bit of proof, whether it was a video or no matter it is likely to be, then, after all, the district legal professional ought to have all the evidence in 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 is one among 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 in 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.

However Clary’s video is probably even more significant to the investigations as a result of it is the only footage that shows the moment a handcuffed, bloody Greene moans beneath the weight of two troopers, twitches and then goes still. It additionally reveals troopers ordering the heavyset, 49-year-old to stay face down on the bottom together with his palms and feet restrained for greater than 9 minutes — a tactic use-of-force specialists criticized as dangerous and more likely to have restricted his breathing.

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

The state police’s own use-of-force knowledgeable highlighted the importance of the Clary footage throughout testimony wherein he characterised the troopers’ actions as “torture and murder.”

Lt. John Clary's body-camera video.

“They’re urgent on his again at one point and Ronald Greene’s foot begins kicking up,” Sgt. Scott Davis instructed lawmakers in March. “The same factor happened in the George Floyd trial. There was a pulmonologist who said that’s the moment of his loss of life. The same factor happened with Ronald Greene.”

Clary’s video reached state police internal affairs officers more than a year after Greene’s demise after they opened a probe and later showed it to the governor. Nevertheless it was lengthy unknown to detectives working the felony case and lacking from the initial investigative case file they turned over to prosecutors in August 2019. Its absence has turn into a focus within the federal probe, which is wanting not only at the actions of the troopers however whether or not state police brass obstructed justice to protect 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 properly uploaded his body-camera footage to a web based proof storage system and the then-head of the agency, Col. Kevin Reeves, defended his administration’s dealing with of the Greene case.

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

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

Albert Paxton, the now-retired lead detective on the Greene case, stated 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 expert, made a passing reference to it in a conversation.

An internal affairs investigation into whether or not Clary purposely withheld the footage was inconclusive and particulars of the probe remain secret. Clary, who didn’t reply to requests for remark, averted self-discipline and stays in 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 building in Baton Rouge and watched movies of the arrest, including the Clary video, the governor’s office said.

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 leading the state investigation.

The Oct. 13 assembly was intended to plan a closed-door occasion the subsequent day by which Greene’s household would meet the governor and think about footage of the arrest. Though the meeting was about showing video of the arrest, it by no means emerged that the governor’s legal professionals and police commanders had been all aware of the Clary footage whereas prosecutors were at the hours of darkness.

“It didn’t come up in any respect,” Belton stated, including he solely knew at the time of the DeMoss video.

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

That agreement falls apart over what happened the following day.

Greene’s family says it was not shown the Clary video after meeting Edwards on Oct. 14, a declare Belton and several others who attended the viewing in Baton Rouge affirmed. State police and the governor’s office, nevertheless, disputed that, saying the Clary video was in truth proven.

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

Lee Merritt, an lawyer for the Greene family, recalled the response he acquired once they requested if there was a Clary video: “We had been informed it was of no evidentiary value.”

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

All through this process, Edwards had thought of making the Greene arrest movies public, information show, however decided in opposition to it at the request of federal prosecutors. After they had been withheld from the general public greater than two years, the AP obtained and revealed both the DeMoss and Clary videos in Could 2021.

An AP investigation that adopted found Greene’s was amongst at the very least a dozen cases over the past decade by 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 culture of impunity, nepotism and, in some instances, outright racism.

Edwards was informed of Greene’s deadly arrest within hours, when he received a text message from Reeves telling him that troopers engaged in a “violent, prolonged battle” 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 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 discovered of the “critical allegations” surrounding Greene’s dying in September 2020, months after Greene’s family filed a wrongful-death lawsuit and the FBI sent a sweeping subpoena for proof to state police.

After the movies have been published, the governor broke his silence and known as the troopers’ actions felony. In current months, as his role in the Greene case has come underneath scrutiny, Edwards has gone further to describe them as racist while denying he’s interfered with or delayed investigations.

The governor’s legal professionals now acknowledge prosecutors did not have the Clary video till spring of 2021. However Edwards insisted as not too long ago 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 occurred that night was presented to prosecutors well before my election, state and federal prosecutors,” Edwards mentioned in a news convention.

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

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