Louisiana Voice

The City of Baton Rouge has quietly agreed to pay $35,000 to the Clarence Green family of Baton Rouge to settle a civil rights lawsuit against a team of Baton Rouge police officers, according to attorney Thomas Frampton, who represented the family in their legal action against the city.

Frampton is associate professor of law at the University of Virginia School of Law.

In the span of 90 minutes on January 1, 2020, the police officers stripped Clarence Green and his 16-year-old brother on a public street, GROPED THEIR GENITALS as part of a “frisk,” illegally entered the Green family’s apartment (with one officer drawing his gun), and repeatedly threated to beat a handcuffed and defenseless Clarence Green (“I’m going to come in [to the backseat of the police car] and f**k you up! You think I’m playing with you? I will f**k you up! I will f**k you clean up!”). The threats were captured on the officers’ body- cam.

The lead officer involved, Sgt. Ken Camallo, was criticized U.S. District Judge Brian Jackson by a federal judge after he testified about the New Year’s Day events. Judge Jackson said the officers “demonstrated a serious and wanton disregard for [Clarence Green’s] constitutional rights, first by initiating a traffic stop on the thinnest of pretext, and then by haphazardly invading [his] home (weapons drawn) to conduct an unjustified, warrantless search.”

The video depicts an “abject violation of the protections afforded by the Fourth Amendment” and “may justifiably be considered” criminal, Judge Jackson said, noting that Camallo “gave multiple conflicting accounts when describing the circumstances leading up to defendant’s traffic stop, and failed to offer a satisfactory explanation for why the police reports in this investigation were revised nearly a dozen times in the months following Green’s arrest.

The officer’s testimony was troubling at best, and the court was prepared to make a credibility determination” had the criminal case against Green been dismissed.

In 2017, in an unrelated case, a different federal judge found that Camallo testified falsely concerning the circumstances another illegal and warrantless home search. BRPD did not discipline Camallo after that incident, Frampton said. The residences in the 2017 case and the 2020 case are around the corner from one another.

Despite the incident with Green occurring over 14 months ago, only one of the five officers involved – Camallo – has faced any internal discipline. Other officers involved but unpunished by BRPD included Officer Troy Lawrence, Jr., believed to be the son of BRPD Deputy Chief Troy Lawrence, Sr.

As usual, none of the officers paid any of the settlement personally; taxpayers are footing the bill.

“The video is horrifying,” Frampton said. “It shows a form of ritualized humiliation and contempt for civil rights that, based on the lack of response from BRPD and District Attorney Hillar Moore, apparently has official sanction. These aren’t bad apples; there are some of the best officers on the force. It’s a miracle someone didn’t get killed . . . this time.”