Louisiana Voice

That an impartial EXAMINATION OF THE AUTOPSY of Ronald Greene has rejected the Louisiana State Police (LSP) claim that Greene died from injuries suffered in a car crash should come as a surprise to absolutely no one who has followed this latest sorry chapter of the LSP story that has unfolded ever-so-slowly over the past seven years.

LouisianaVoice has chronicled the decadence of LSP since that infamous attempt at the close of the 2014 legislative session to sneak a huge – and illegal – increase in retirement benefits for then-LSP superintendent Mike Edmonson.

And while that effort was thwarted, sources within state police began providing tips that led to LouisianaVoice exclusive stories about:

• Troopers having sex with informants in their patrol cars while on duty;
• Troopers leaving their shifts several hours early to either take naps at home or to work in their personal business;
• Troopers getting into altercations with private citizens;
• Troopers issuing DWI citations to obviously sober drivers just so they could accrue days off;
• The fake retirement of a supervisor at LSP who, when caught, was ordered to repay the state – but never did;
• A Trooper getting a promotion after he was caught sneaking an underage woman who was not his wife into a Mississippi casino;
• A trooper who openly used narcotics while on duty;
• A trooper at the command level who regularly took his state vehicle to football games in Texas to see his brother-in-law play;
• Troopers cheating on their time sheets for supposedly pulling duty in a program funded by local district attorneys;
• A State Police Commission created to serve as a pseudo-civil service especially for State Police but which is riddled with politics and which featured a romantic tryst between members.

There were many more such stories, actually hundreds, so I won’t even attempt to list them all.

And while not an exclusive – The Advocate actually broke the story – there was our account of that infamous trip by car by several troopers to San Diego via Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon and Hoover Dam back in 2016 (and strangely enough, the troopers were held blameless by investigators who said they were told to take the vehicle and the one who told them to, Edmonson, was somehow also exonerated. Go figure.)

LouisianaVoice also was the first to delve into the Ronald Greene matter that LSP had successfully managed to COVER UP for 15 months and even then LSP had only disciplined one of the officers involved in what was actually the beating death of Greene – not an auto accident – and he was merely placed on leave at the time.

And yes, Greene did flee from police when they first attempted to pull him over and yes, the chase involved speeds in excess of 100 mph. But when he exited his vehicle apologizing for running, he was handcuffed. That should have been enough. When cuffed and not resisting, it would seem to the outside observer that beatings were unnecessary at that point.

The Greene beating wasn’t the only one for Troop F, headquartered in Monroe and responsible for patrol in several northeast Louisiana parishes. That same month, May 2019, Larry Bowman was struck in the head 18 times with a metal flashlight by state troopers even though he was not resisting officers.

The danger of driving while black in northeast Louisiana even got the attention of NPR.

And now, the FBI report says what we knew all along – Greene did not die from the car crash. He died at the hands of state police who then first tried to cover up the incident and then flat-out lied about it. Even the Union Parish coroner went along with the ruse, attributing Greene’s death to the vehicle accident.

And the district attorney for the 3^rd Judicial District, which includes Lincoln and Union parishes, has been strangely quiet on the matter. John Belton is an announced candidate for Louisiana Attorney General and one might think he’d be leading the effort to bring the troopers to justice.

And, of course, LSP has not responded to the latest findings.

As one retired trooper told LouisianaVoice early on, they’ve circled the wagons.