Louisiana Voice

A couple of interesting details have come to light in the Ronald Greene matter that leave me scratching my head and wondering what the hell’s going on.

Greene, you may recall, was beaten, kicked, and tased to death in May 2019 by Louisiana State Troopers from Troop F in Monroe. Officers had attempted to pull Greene over in Ouachita Parish but he fled and was not caught until he crashed his car into a tree in Union Parish.

Reasons for his fleeing are unknown since no drugs, alcohol, or weapons were in his vehicle.

State Police initially said he died from injuries sustained in the collision with the tree, but that was a lie. His injuries from the wreck, if any, were minor. It wasn’t until video of the assault by five troopers and a Union Parish sheriff’s deputy surfaced a full year after the accident that the truth became known.

State Police had denied the existence of any body cam video. That also was a lie.

So, here are the details that puzzle me about the entire matter:

Gov. Edwards was told via a text message from then-State Police Superintendent Kevin Reeves at 10 a.m. on May 10, 2019, nine hours after Greene’s death, that Greene had died following a “violent, lengthy struggle.”

Edwards was involved in a close race for reelection and chose not to do the right thing, instead taking the coward’s way out by saying and doing NOTHING.

I was under the impression that we elected him to honor the West Point Code of Honor and to stand up for the right thing no matter the consequences. I guess I was wrong because for two years after Greene’s death, he continued to push the story that Greene died in the wreck.

On the Jim Engster Show on Louisiana Public Radio, Edwards hedged on that position only slightly when he said in response to a question from a listener, “Did he die from injuries sustained in the accident? Obviously, he didn’t die in the accident itself because he was still alive when the troopers were engaging with him. But what was the cause of death? I don’t know that that was falsely portrayed.”

That was in September, long after the video of the assault had become public.

Last July, a MEMO surfaced that showed that Louisiana State Police asked staff members not to destroy Ronald Greene case files. The memo, leaked to Baton Rouge TV station WBRZ, advised all Department of Public Safety agency staff to “preserve potential evidence by taking the appropriate steps to ensure that potential evidence relevant to the Ronald Greene matter is preserved and not deleted, damaged, or destroyed.”

That makes sense. After all, any documents, texts, or emails could come into play in any anticipated litigation over Greene’s death.

Yet…yet, we learn that State Police “SANITIZED” the cellphones of Reeves and former police commander Mike Noel, who resigned just as he was set to be questioned about the case by lawmakers whose consent was required for Noel’s consideration for the position of Louisiana Gambling Board chairman.

Sanitized, of course, is a euphemism for wiping, or erasing the contents of the phones. State Police said it was customary to take such action, but this was no ordinary situation. These phones contained evidence, including that text message to Gov. Edwards of May 10, 2019.

What else might have been on those phones? We’ll never know, but we do know that Doug Cain, promoted to lieutenant colonel soon after Reeves retired, attempted to SHUT DOWN the INVESTIGATION into Greene’s death.

But for all the hoopla over the Greene case, it’s just one of a disturbing trend of police violence against African Americans for the offense of DRIVING WHILE BLACK – by state and municipal police officers.

From the almost casual use of ATTACK DOGS on victims by Lake Charles police to the brutal beating of a black man arrested for the crime of blocking a sidewalk with his car by a HAMMOND POLICE SERGEANT later promoted to Chief of Police, a beating described by a consultant hired by the City Council as “one of the most abusive uses of force” that he has ever investigated, there is ample evidence of cops run amok.

This was Seth Stoughton, an attorney and former police officer who teaches at the University of South Carolina School of Law who made that observation. He served as prosecution expert in the 2021 trial of Minneapolis police officer Derek Cauvin, so he knows a little about police brutality.

Still, Hammond Mayor Pete Panepinto refused to discipline officers and even promoted Sgt. Edwin Bergeron, the one who initiated the attack on Kendrick Ratliff, to police chief. Panepinto continues to support the officers despite overwhelming VIDEO EVIDENCE that officers were out of control in their zeal to beat Ratliff to a pulp.

The lesson to be learned here, I suppose, is to expect police to circle the wagons in an effort to cover up their own crimes. That will include denying the existence of body cam video, destruction of texts, emails, and other communication. Given the opportunity and if it occurs to them, they will turn off their body cams or at least mute them so as to eliminate any screams from tasing, beating, and kicking.

I never thought I’d write such a diatribe against law enforcement. They’ve always been my heroes, my protectors. But now I see a different breed of cop. There are those within State Police that see it, too. One State Trooper, who created an email account under the pseudonym of Toussaint Louverture, has for months now been critical of LSP administration.

Today, Louverture posted a lengthy “told you so” email in which he reminded us that he has said all along that Edwards knew the details of Greene’s death but has said and done nothing.

“In previous emails,” he wrote, “I have stated that there was no possible way that Governor John Bel Edwards did not have any knowledge of Louisiana State Police Troopers beating ‘the ever living f**k’ out of Ronald Greene days after it took place. I also stated that Governor Edwards chose his political career, which was heavenly supported by blacks, over a black man’s life. But most of us choose to ignore this. Either because we are politically connected to Edwards, wanted to be promoted, tied to a paycheck or just lack the courage to be a decent human being. But Ronald Greene was murdered by LSP Troopers.”

“Well, here we are two years later and all we have is a murdered black man, an ongoing departmental coverup, and a political game of charades going on,” he wrote.

I couldn’t have said it better.

Read Full Post »

As a rule, I have nothing but disdain for legislators who file bills because of a personal grudge or a bad experience.

Every so often, for example, some lawmaker will get a speeding ticket while driving through some small town on his way to or from Baton Rouge to conduct important state business. Whenever that happens, you can count on a bill being introduced to rein in or even outlaw those small-town speed traps.

Never mind the fact that speeding tickets provide the major source of revenue for some of those towns. And it never seems to occur to a legislator to curtail the speed trap activity until he becomes a victim.

And while on the subject of speed traps, if you ever head down to Grand Isle, you have to go through a little town called Golden Meadow. The speed limit in Golden Meadow, if I recall correctly, is 25 mph and if you do 26, you’ll get a ticket.

One man I talked to even made it a point to explain to his son that you have to be very careful in Golden Meadow. But he still got a speeding ticket – for going 38 and he swears he was going under 25. The officer showed him his radar gun and it showed 38 on the display. The victim suspects the officer got someone doing 38 earlier and never reset his radar gun so that it would register 38 on anyone he subsequently chose to stop.

“He told me I could come to court and contest it,” he said, “but I’m not going back down there just to go up against a stacked deck. I paid the damn ticket but I didn’t like it.

But like I said, I generally hold self-serving legislation by lawmakers in contempt and, to be honest, I ain’t too enamored with most legislation offered up by the Republicans these days even though I am a recovering Republican.

But Rep. Paul Hollis (R-Mandeville) has filed such a “personal” bill and I have to say I can see where he’s coming from and I hope his bill passes.

I know he doesn’t need my blessings on his legislation but when he tries to put a damper on the HOMEOWNER ASSOCIATION Nazis, I gotta pull for him.

And make no mistake, it’s personal. Hollis, it seems got into a squabble with a neighbor over the neighbor’s barking dog (dog do that, you know). Anyway, one thing led to another and the neighbor installed a surveillance camera and apparently aimed it in the Hollis home’s direction. So, he erected an 8-foot fence to block the video camera and to baffle the dog’s barking.

He did so only after complaining to the HOC about the barking dog and the HOC did nothing. Nothing, that is, until he erected that fence. Then the association swung into action, imposing a fine of $25 per day and threatening Hollis with a lien on his property. Why? Because the fence exceeded the allowable 6-foot height.

It’s on now.

Hollis has filed a bill that would nullify any prohibition that infringes on the constitutional rights of a lot owner. He’s also considering filing a companion bill that would allow homeowners to opt out of existing HOAs because of what he calls “the horror stories” that impose “selective enforcement on what is covered in the covenants” and which complaints will be ignored and which ones enforced.

We’ve all heard the stories of how HOA types stalk neighborhoods to see whose garage door is left open, whose grass is a quarter-inch too long, whose mail box doesn’t comply with the approved neighborhood motif, whose house is painted the wrong color, and whose kid is not allowed to operate a lemonade stand in her parents’ front yard. It just seems to me that some people have far too much time on their hands.

Give these people enough rope and they’ll be dictating what kind and what color vehicle you’re allowed to have.

NOLA.com published the story about Hollis’ predicament and quoted Robert Phillips, president of GNO Property Management, a New Orleans company that manages homeowner associations (you mean there’s someone all the way across Lake Pontchartrain that dictates what local HOAs say and do?).

Phillips said folks have a fondness for gates and rules as a means of protecting their property. “People who buy into HOAs and condos do it with the idea they aren’t going to have someone with a trailer next door or broken-down cars in the front yard,” he said, adding that if they didn’t want the restrictions, “they’d go to Folsom and buy five acres.”

As for keeping a mobile home from going in next door, I thought that was what local zoning laws were for.

Phillips continued: “The majority of the people appreciate the work we do. The ones who don’t appreciate it are the ones who et letters.”

Not subject to an HOA, I don’t have a dog in this hunt, but I know people who do and I’m hoping Hollis can bring some sort of uniformity – and sanity – with his personal vendetta bill.

Read Full Post »

How long does it take for a political body to make a decision on something as obvious as the VIDEO first aired by Baton Rouge TV station WBRZ and then on LOUISIANA VOICE  on Aug. 13, 2020 that clearly shows Hammond police officers hit, kick and tase a handcuffed prisoner who appeared to commit no more serious offense than reaching for a bottle of pills?

It all started back on Dec. 6, 2017, when Kentdrick Ratliff, 38, was arrested for the crime of blocking a sidewalk with his vehicle, certainly reason enough to consider him a threat to humanity. There remains a dispute as to whether or not he gave officers permission to search his car. Police say he gave consent, he says he did not.

But be that as it may, in the booking room he was handcuffed and seated at a desk. Officers had apparently either removed a couple of bottles of pills from his person or from his car (it’s unclear whether or not they were prescription medications). At one point, he reached for one of the bottles and that’s when officers, including Sgt. Edwin Bergeron pounced.

Officers can be seen on the video kicking Ratliff in the head while another officer kept his boot on the prisoner’s neck and another kneeled on his body. One officer, Sgt. Thomas Mushinsky took the opportunity to deliver a swift kick to what Ratliff later said was the most vulnerable area of a man’s body. Officers claim the kick was to his leg. But does it really matter? Kicking a handcuffed prisoner, weighing all of 154 pounds and who was offering no resistance, anywhere would appear to be somewhat excessive.

In fact, that’s just how an investigator hired by the city described that and other attacks on Ratliff’s person. More about that later.

For years, Ratliff’s attorney Ravi Shah, and the district attorney’s office were told that no video of the incident existed. If that sounds a bit familiar, I refer you to the story of Ronald Greene, killed by state troopers out of Monroe’s Troop F in May 2019. State Police also said there was no video of that incident. Both claims turned out to be lies when video of both attacks later surfaced.

WBRZ’s Chris Nakamoto provided LouisianaVoice with a copy of a report done by Use of Force Consultants of McKinney, Texas, that said Mushinsky’s kick was a “trained distraction technique,” adding that the force employed by Bergeron and another officer was “excessive and borderline criminal.”

The ARREST REPORT of the Hammond Police Department is almost comical were the offenses of police officers not so brutal. The report was initially arrested for obstructing a public passage, a 14:100 in Barney Fife parlance. Then, after his vehicle was searched (with or without his consent), he was charged with possession of a schedule IV drug with intent to distribute (40:969A) and possession of a schedule I drug (40:968), four counts of resisting a police officer with force or violence (the dreaded 14:108), though there’s little evidence to support those charges in the video. Then officers tacked on a charge of obstruction of justice by tampering with evidence (that’s a 14:130), parking the wrong way (14:143), and possession of legend drugs (40.971H), simple escape, aggravated escape (14:110), disarming of a police officer (14:34, and criminal damage to property (14.56).

Nowhere in the video does it show Ratliff “disarming” an officer, being guilty of “simple” or “aggravated” escape of any description and the only damage to property came when officers pinned him down and pummeled him. All property damage was inflicted by overzealous cops eager to get their punches in.

But the video and the report of Use of Force Consultants wasn’t enough for the Hammond City Council or Mayor Pete Panepinto who, during the interim, promoted Bergeron from sergeant to chief of police. So, Seth Stoughton, a professor at the University of South Carolina School of Law and in the university’s Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, was retained to do yet another report.

Stoughton present his 158-page report to the council yesterday and the results did nothing to absolve officers of any blame for excessive uses of force.

Stoughton listed 10 separate uses of force and described them as either unreasonable, excessively unreasonable, or excessively egregious. He specifically described officer Craig Dunn’s kicking and stomping Ratliff while he was on the floor as “among the most abusive uses of force I’ve seen in…I don’t know how many cases.”

He noted that the video showed “several officers standing around” during the tag-team beating of Ratliff. “The department has no intervention policy. I would strongly recommend that such a policy be adopted.”

Following Stoughton’s presentation, council member Kip Andrews offered to add an agenda item calling for Panepinto to fire Bergeron but because the addition of agenda items requires a unanimous vote, his motion failed when it was opposed by Carlee White. White said she and the other council members had just received Stoughton’s report and she believed more time was needed to digest its contents before making a decision.

Well, it’s only been since December of 2017 that Ratliff was assaulted by Hammond police, so what’s another month or so?

Meanwhile, Bergeron keep drawing a paycheck.

And watch where you park your car there to be sure you don’t block a sidewalk.

Read Full Post »

The grave injustices heaped upon New Orleans attorney ASHTON O’DWYER by Louisiana State Police in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the legal obstacles thrown in his path since then have been documented by LouisianaVoice and columnist JAMES GILL.

So, it’s understandable that O’Dwyer took issue with my claim that LSP legal counsel Fay Morrison was being served up as a sacrificial lamb by LSP in an effort at damage control in the Ronald Greene matter.

O’Dwyer’s protestations notwithstanding, LouisianaVoice said then that Morrison was being made a SCAPEGOAT in an effort to protect higher-ups in the LSP food chain who were responsible for the actual decision to conceal details of the beating death of Greene at the hands of LSP troopers from Troop F out of Monroe.

Coincidentally, it was Troop F personnel who physically abused O’Dwyer while he was being held prisoner for the horrendous act of refusing to leave his home during Hurricane Katrina despite the indisputable fact that his home was safe and that he provided accommodations for news reporters covering the hurricane.

Now, thanks to the diligence of Baton Rouge television reporter CHRIS NAKAMOTO who just won’t let the story of Greene’s death go away, and to the dogged investigation of LSP detective Albert Paxton, we learn that the second-in-command at LSP indeed played a major role in the cover-up and even received a promotion just as details of Greene’s death were becoming public – a year-and-a-half after the fact.

Doug Cain was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel upon the sudden retirement of LSP Superintendent Kevin Reeves who, ironically, previously served in Troop F.

But there is a twist in the plot previously not known: Cain harbored ambitions to move into Reeves’s slot and was even jockeying for the position only to be denied when Lamar Davis was appointed to the position.

Cain confided during a conversation with LouisianaVoice that he had aspirations to be named superintendent. During speculation about who would succeed Reeves, Cain, in an unguarded moment, said, “I would hope to be considered. I’d like to be superintendent one day.”

At the time of that exchange, we were speculating on who would succeed Reeves, who had just stepped down as the Greene investigation was just picking up steam.

Greene, a black man, was involved in a two-parish chase with State Police. The chase ended when Greene hit a tree, causing minor damage to his vehicle. Police indicated to Greene’s family that Greene had died in the collision, which was a lie. Greene was very much alive and pleading with officers as eventually proven by police body cam evidence that remained hidden for 16 months even as State Police denied the existence of any video of the incident.

LSP investigator Paxton, who is assigned to Troop F, has testified that he was blocked in his investigation by LSP administrators who wanted the matter to go away. Apparently, Cain was in the mix. Paxton’s notes say that Cain “blew off” his efforts and indicated to others at LSP that he didn’t trust Paxton.

Paxton’s notes further say that both he and Scott Brown wanted Trooper Chris Hollingsworth arrested a week after Greene died, but that that didn’t happen. It was more than a year before the case came to the public’s attention and Hollingsworth subsequently died in a single-vehicle accident only hours after he was finally terminated by State Police.

Paxton also communicated with Cain on Dec. 23, 2020, about his concerns over Trooper Kory York’s committing battery on Greene but his notes say that Cain told him, “York has already been punished and we are not going back.”

Paxton recently testified that he was issued a letter of reprimand for unauthorized dissemination of information for sending emails of his reports to his wife to proofread. Paxton said that had been a practice of his for 14 years with approval from his supervisor.

So, in effect, LSP gives tacit approval of actions so long as they do not cast the agency in a bad light but when the light is shone on misdeeds and malfeasance, it becomes grounds for disciplinary action. In terms easier to comprehend, the official policy is “kill the messenger.”

In seven-plus years of Louisianavoice’s coverage of Louisiana State Police, it has become obvious that it has become a runaway agency populated with rogue officers supported by administrators who were, at best, indifferent and/or incompetent or, at worst, corrupt.

And for now, at least, it would appear that, thanks to Paxton’s report and Nakamoto’s tenacity, at least one career track, Doug Cain’s ambition to lead LSP, has been derailed.

Read Full Post »

Theoretically, at least, if 500 prisoners can be moved from the overcrowded Harris County jail to private correctional facilities, they become someone’s problem other than Sheriff Ed Gonzalez’s.

Theoretically.

Harris County commissioners last month unanimously approved the REQUEST by Gonzalez to reduce jail crowding by outsourcing 500 pretrial defendants from Harris County to as then-unspecified locations – locations that ultimately ended up as LaSalle Corrections facilities in Louisiana hundreds of miles from prisoners’ families and legal representatives.

Gonzalez told commissioners that arrests were being made at a faster rate than prisoners were being processed out of the county jail which on a given day has 9000 prisoners. “There is no other facility in the entire state of Texas, no state prison and no county jail, that comes close to those kinds of numbers,” the sheriff said.

Gabriela Barahona, a program associate with the Texas Jail Project, agreed that the jail is overcrowded but disagreed with the proposed solution. She argued that the solution was to detain and prosecute fewer people on low-level offenses.

She apparently bruised the feelings of the Haris County District Attorney when she said, “We’re horrified by the county’s instinct to even consider outsourcing defendants rather than take responsibility for the front-end problem in the DA’s office. I cannot believe this court that claims to care about the indigent defense and court backlog crises would pay a Louisiana premium to exacerbate them.”

Dane Schiller, a spokesperson for the DA’s office was quick to respond via email:

“Criminals, not prosecutors, determine how many crimes are committed and it is up to judges to decide who should be held in jail or released pending trial,” he said. “While the Texas Jail Project may be about getting as many defendants as possible back into the streets no matter what, the District Attorney’s Office is about keeping the public safe, the system’s fair, and basing decisions on evidence.”

Apparently, the welfare of the prisoners, who haven’t even gone to trial yet, is of secondary importance, given the choice of where they’re being sent.

It’s not like there hasn’t been sufficient information available in recent months regarding LaSalle’s track record.

Things were so bad at its facility in Texarkana that LaSalle eventually TERMINATED its contract to run the Bowie County Jail following claims of inmate neglect, death of prisoners, charges of falsification of records, failure to complete training courses, lying about those courses, beatings of prisoners, denying medications, avoiding reporting in-custody deaths by releasing prisoners to hospitals or families prior to their deaths, filthy conditions, and, in the case of its Georgia facility, the performance of unwanted HYSERECTOMIES on female detainees.

Another inmate in the Texarkana facility, initially arrested for the heinous crime of jaywalking, was subsequently beaten while “absent – not assigned,” meaning he was just flat-out LOST and unaccounted for. It’s still undetermined if he was beaten by guards or by fellow prisoners.

LaSalle also got into legal trouble in Louisiana, paying out a $405,000 settlement to a former inmate at its Jackson Parish Correctional Center. Links to several LouisianaVoice stories about LaSalle can be accessed by going HERE.

President Joe Biden, if you recall, promised during his campaign that he would abolish the private prison system. So far, there has been no obvious effort to deliver on that promise.

Dumping 500 of Houston’s pretrial detainees into LaSalle facilities in Louisiana doesn’t seem like much of a move in the direction of abolishment of a bad system – bad for everyone, that is, but the private prisons and sheriffs who receive campaign contributions from them.

Opponents say the transfer will exacerbate root causes of the population crisis, inadequate indigent defense, and court backlogs. They also claim that defendants are being charged too frequently, saying that 67 percent of misdemeanor arrests and 34 percent of all felony arrests in 2019 resulted in dismissals.

The problem isn’t totally with LaSalle, however. Budgeted upgrades to Houston’s adult detention facilities was $185.7 million for fiscal year 2021-2022 with the TOTAL BUDGET for the Harris County Public Safety and Justice capital improvement program topping out at $301.4 million. That’s more than Harris County’s combined expenditures for pollution control, public health and mental health.

Still, opponents of the move say, LaSalle is “a notoriously abusive and deadly private prison company.”

Just thinking out loud, but it seems like a pretty good idea for someone to check Gonzalez’s campaign report for contributions from LaSalle or a certain Ruston family named McConnell.

Just sayin’.

Read Full Post »