Louisiana Voice

A final exam is tomorrow and you haven’t studied for it. You need a high B or low A to even pass and worse, you’re headed to class in your underwear.

It’s a stupid recurring dream that haunts many people long after their college careers are over. I guess it’s testimony to just how traumatic college life can really be.

My personal nightmare is having to read Herman Melville’s Moby Dick over and over in preparation for a test. That is the single most difficult book I’ve ever read. Even the Cliff Notes were too much for me to absorb. I remember precisely one sentence from Moby Dick – the very first one, if my memory hasn’t failed me: “Call me Ishmael.” Everything after that is a complete blank, sort of like some self-imposed amnesia.

But Melville had another classic, one that wasn’t published until 1924, fully 33 years after his death.

Billy Budd is the story about a popular sailor aboard a British ship HMS Bellipotent during the Napoleonic wars. Falsely charged with conspiracy to mutiny by the ship’s master-at-arms John Claggart. When confronted with his charges, the astounded Billy strikes out at Claggart, killing him. A court-martial is convened by the ship’s captain, Edward Fairfax Vere who acts as the convening authority, the prosecutor and defense counsel as well as the sole witness (other than Billy).

No one wants to convict Billy because no one believes the conspiracy to mutiny charge, but the rules say someone has to be punished for Claggart’s death. “Struck dead by an angel of God! Yet the angel must hang!” proclaims Vere. And so it is that Billy Budd is hanged but not before saying, “God bless Captain Vere!”

And so it is with the ongoing saga at Louisiana State Police in the aftermath of the May 2019 death of Ronald Greene, an African American barber, at the hands of several State Troopers from LSP Troop F, aka F-Troop in homage to the inept calvary unit of TV-sitcom fame.

Faye Morrison was nowhere near the scene when troopers finally caught Greene in Union Parish after a chase of several miles (it’s still unclear why he fled; he had no drugs or alcohol in his vehicle or in his system, nor was he wanted for any crimes). Yet, she is the LSP equivalent to Billy Budd.

Faye Morrison is an attorney. More specifically, she was (past tense) the chief legal counsel for LSP and as such was necessarily involved in official reactions to Greene’s death and LSP administration’s attempt at smoothing over the incident.

But, to be clear, she did not make the final decisions on what course to pursue. Her role was to lend legal advice. LSP administration’s role was to accept or ignore her advice. As of now, we don’t know what her advice was, specifically, but what is known is that the high command at LSP took no action in the matter for 16 months – and then only after embarrassing details started to leak out.

For example, troopers involved in the chase and subsequent beating and tasing of Greene said he died as the result of his vehicle leaving the road and hitting a tree. We now know that was a lie. The damage to his car was minimal and he was very much alive post-accident. He even can be heard on video telling officers, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry” and “I’m scared.” But officers, apparently pissed at having to pursue him from Ouachita into Union Parish, were in no conciliatory mood.

When it was determined that Greene was indeed dead, his body was not turned over to a coroner in Louisiana where records might have been more accessible to inquiring minds. Instead, he was transported to Arkansas for the autopsy. If not an attempt to conceal details of his death, then why Arkansas?

State Police Lt. John Clary, one of those involved (he actually arrived after the fracas was well underway), at first denied having body camera video. That, too, was a lie. His own body cam was made available to and released by Associated Press in May 2021, precisely two years after Greene’s death. Would that not constitute obstruction of justice on Clary’s part?

And why take 16 months to finally suspend Trooper Christopher Hollingsworth, the only one to be disciplined as of last September? Hollingsworth was subsequently notified that he was being terminated and soon after died as the result of a single-vehicle accident on I-20. His death is believed to have been by suicide.

Only one Trooper, Kory York, HAS BEEN FIRED thus far, more than two years after Greene’s death and well after Derek Chauvin had been arrested, tried and convicted in the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis – a death that occurred a full year after Greene’s death. Another trooper involved in the Greene stop, John Clary, has also been fired, but for other reasons other than Greene, LSP officials said.

Then-State Police Superintendent Col. Kevin Reeves was first notified of details surrounding Greene’s death as he participated in a golf tournament. That he was informed of the incident while playing golf was bad enough, but it was months after Greene’s death that he was even told. Why wasn’t he informed sooner?

His response? Their actions were “AWFUL BUT LAWFUL,” according to a Baton Rouge Advocate story by reporters John Simerman and Lea Skene.

As the heat was gradually turned up on the event, Reeves abruptly retired. His Chief of Staff at the time, Col. Mike Noel, was named by Gov. John Bel Edwards to head up the State Gaming Control Board to succeed Ronnie Jones. But learning that he would be grilled over the Greene matter during his Senate confirmation hearing on the last day of the 2021 legislative session, he, too, opted for RETIREMENT.

With the top two men gone, that left Faye Morrison exposed as the only vulnerable Assistant Secretary of the Department of Public Safety and Corrections still standing over at LSP.

And just as with the fictional Billy Budd, someone had to take the fall, And, like Billy Budd, she was expendable.

But, as any political observer will tell you, the cover-up is always worse than the crime and at LSP, they’ve begun to circle the wagons, prompting one former State Trooper to tell LouisianaVoice, “I have never in my life been so ashamed to have been affiliated with Louisiana State Police.”

As a postscript to all this, the role of John Belton cannot be overlooked. Belton is the district attorney for the 3^rd Judicial District, which encompasses Lincoln and Union parishes. Greene’s death occurred in Union. A female inmate was also raped several years back in the Union Parish jail. Both occurrences fell within the Belton’s purview for prosecution.

He did nothing in either case. Zero. Now, Belton’s presence is popping up on Facebook as he launches his campaign to become Louisiana’s next attorney general. By all accounts, he is a good and decent man, having served as President of the Louisiana District Attorney’s Association form 2019-2020, and as a board member for the National District Attorney’s Association.

But those honorary positions speak little to his qualifications to become the state’s top attorney and his silence in the two aforementioned cases is deafening.

Voters should keep that in mind in 2023.