Governor noticed 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 high lawyers gathered in a state police conference room in October 2020 to arrange for the fallout from a troubling case closer 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 closing breaths — footage that prosecutors, detectives and medical experts wouldn’t even know existed for one more 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 Related Press investigation primarily 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 essential footage into the palms of those with the ability to charge the white troopers seen stunning, punching and dragging Greene.

That video, which confirmed important moments and audio absent from other footage that was turned over, wouldn’t reach prosecutors until practically two years after Greene’s Might 10, 2019, demise on a rural roadside near Monroe. Now three years have handed, and after lengthy, ongoing federal and state probes, nonetheless nobody 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 Commission, 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 into questions which have dogged his administration for months. Edwards and his workers are anticipated to be referred to as within weeks to testify under oath before a bipartisan legislative committee probing the case and a possible cover-up.

Edwards’ attorneys say there was no method for the governor to have identified 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 workers to withhold proof.

Regardless, the governor’s attorneys didn’t point out seeing the video in a gathering simply days later with state prosecutors, who wouldn’t obtain the footage till a detective found it almost by accident six months later. Whereas U.S. Justice Division officials refused to remark, the top of the state police, Col. Lamar Davis, instructed 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 a protracted line of Louisiana sheriffs, did not make himself available 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 also harassed that state police, not Edwards’ workplace, truly possessed the video.

“I can’t go back and repair what was executed,” Block mentioned. “All people would agree that if there would have been some understanding that the district legal professional didn't have a bit of proof, whether or not it was a video or no matter it might be, then, of course, the district attorney should have all of the proof in the case. In fact.”

At issue is the 30-minute body-camera footage from Lt. John Clary, the highest-ranking trooper to answer Greene’s arrest. It is one in all two videos of the incident, and captured events 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 perhaps much more significant to the investigations because it is the solely footage that exhibits the moment a handcuffed, bloody Greene moans under the burden of two troopers, twitches and then goes still. It additionally reveals troopers ordering the heavyset, 49-year-old to stay face down on the ground with his fingers and toes restrained for more than 9 minutes — a tactic use-of-force consultants criticized as harmful and more likely to have restricted his breathing.

And in contrast to the DeMoss video, which matches silent midway by way of when the microphone is turned off, Clary’s video has sound all through, picking up a trooper ordering Greene to “lay in your f------ stomach 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 significance of the Clary footage throughout testimony during which he characterized the troopers’ actions as “torture and murder.”

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 told lawmakers in March. “The same thing happened in the George Floyd trial. There was a pulmonologist who stated that’s the moment of his death. The identical thing happened with Ronald Greene.”

Clary’s video reached state police internal affairs officers greater than a 12 months after Greene’s demise when they opened a probe and later confirmed it to the governor. However it was long unknown to detectives working the criminal case and lacking from the preliminary investigative case file they turned over to prosecutors in August 2019. Its absence has change into a focus in the federal probe, which is looking not only on the actions of the troopers however whether 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 instead gave investigators a thumb drive of other troopers’ videos.

State police say Clary properly 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 think that there was any cover-up by state police of this matter,” Reeves, who has described Greene’s loss of life as “awful but lawful,” said in current legislative testimony.

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

Albert Paxton, the now-retired lead detective on the Greene case, stated he didn’t be taught the video existed until April 2021 when Davis, who had broad access to body-camera video as the agency’s use-of-force knowledgeable, made a passing reference to it in a conversation.

An inside affairs investigation into whether or not Clary purposely withheld the footage was inconclusive and particulars of the probe stay secret. Clary, who didn’t reply to requests for comment, averted self-discipline and stays 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 constructing in Baton Rouge and watched videos of the arrest, together with the Clary video, the governor’s workplace said.

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

The Oct. 13 meeting was supposed to plan a closed-door occasion the following day by which Greene’s family would meet the governor and look at 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 conscious of the Clary footage whereas prosecutors have been in the dead of night.

“It didn’t come up in any respect,” Belton stated, adding he only knew at 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 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 office, nevertheless, 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 family that day.”

Lee Merritt, an legal professional for the Greene family, recalled the response he received when they requested if there was a Clary video: “We had been advised it was of no evidentiary worth.”

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

Throughout this process, Edwards had thought-about making the Greene arrest movies public, information present, but determined against it on the request of federal prosecutors. After they have been withheld from the general public more than two years, the AP obtained and printed each the DeMoss and Clary movies in Might 2021.

An AP investigation that adopted found Greene’s was among at least a dozen cases over the previous decade in which state police troopers or their bosses ignored or concealed proof of beatings, deflected blame and impeded efforts to root out misconduct. Dozens of current and former troopers said 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 inside hours, when he obtained a text message from Reeves telling him that troopers engaged in a “violent, prolonged battle” with a Black motorist, ending in his death. 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 said he first discovered of the “critical allegations” surrounding Greene’s demise in September 2020, months after Greene’s household 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 referred to as the troopers’ actions legal. In latest months, as his role in the Greene case has come underneath scrutiny, Edwards has gone additional to describe them as racist while denying he’s interfered with or delayed investigations.

The governor’s lawyers now acknowledge prosecutors didn't have the Clary video until spring of 2021. However 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 facts are clear that the proof of what occurred that night time was offered to prosecutors effectively before my election, state and federal prosecutors,” Edwards mentioned in a information conference.

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

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