AP found that by the Louisiana State Police’s own tally, 67% of its uses of force in recent years targeted Black people _ double the percentage of the state’s Black population.
In one video, white troopers can be seen slamming a Black man against a police cruiser after finding marijuana in his car, throwing him to the ground and repeatedly punching him — all while he is handcuffed.
An AP review of internal investigative records and newly obtained videos identified at least a dozen cases over the past decade in which Louisiana State Police troopers or their bosses ignored or concealed evidence of beatings, deflected blame and impeded efforts to root out misconduct.into state police misconduct — found troopers have made a habit of turning off or muting body cameras during pursuits. When footage is recorded, the agency routinely refuses to release it.
The revelations come as civil rights and Black leaders urge the U.S. Justice Department to launch a broader, “pattern and practice” investigation into potential systemic racial profiling by the overwhelmingly white state police, similar to other probes opened in recent months in Minneapolis, Louisville and Phoenix.
Col. Lamar Davis, the state police superintendent, declined requests for an interview but said in a statement that the agency has completely revised its excessive force policies and practices and implemented numerous reforms in the 11 months since he took office. The state police have been under intense scrutiny since May when the AP published previously unreleased body camera footage of Greene’s May 10, 2019, arrest at the end of a high-speed chase near Monroe. It showed white troopers stunning, beating and dragging Greene as he pleaded for mercy. One clip that a supervisor denied having for two years showed troopers leaving the heavyset Greene prone and shackled facedown for more than nine minutes. Among the 49-year-old’s last words: “I’m your brother.
The seven-member panel had been focused on reviewing thousands of hours of body camera footage from about a dozen specific troopers in northern Louisiana’s Troop F, including some of those involved in the beatings of Greene and three other Black motorists. In another case from August 2019, Darrell Smith, a white motorist who fled a traffic stop near Baton Rouge, contended in a lawsuit that troopers caught up with him and beat him beyond recognition, causing him to be hospitalized with temporary kidney failure. A use-of-force report leaves unchecked whether body-camera video exists and lists Smith’s injuries as “nonincapacitating.
One former trooper, Jacob Brown, was perhaps the agency’s most prolifically violent officer in recent years. Records show he tallied 23 uses of force dating to 2015 — 19 on Black people — and he faces charges in three separate beatings.after deputies pulled him over for a traffic violation near his Monroe home in May 2019.
Two more troopers jumped on Blake, who was still handcuffed, in the roadside grass. “Stop resisting,” one of them yelled. Footage shows Trooper Randall “Colby” Dickerson punching Blake five times and kneeing him in the side. Dickerson, who faces state charges in the case, declined to comment.
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