Louisiana Voice

In case you don’t remember Jim Mustian, let me refresh your memory.

Mustian once worked for the Baton Rouge Advocate and was, in my humble opinion, one of the best reporters on the paper’s staff. He was tenacious in his coverage of the Louisiana State Police and then-Superintendent Mike Edmonson. He and I were in constant competition to break stories on the agency and its head.

But then in 2018, The Advocate’s loss became the Associated Press’s gain when he left for the news agency.

But Mustian, a graduate of Northwestern Louisiana University, didn’t exactly go away.

Besides his coverage of the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, he, along with fellow NSU grad Joshua Goodman, last May wrote about an ex-Colombian customs worker who was sentence to 12 years in federal prison for receiving more than $1 million in bribes in a money laundering scheme that also involved a dirty DEA agent.

But more recently, he teamed with another AP writer, Jack Brook, to once again deal more than a little embarrassment to the Louisiana State Police. It was a story published just last Friday about the BRUTAL BEATING of a prisoner by DeSoto Parish Sheriff’s deputies – a beating that was caught on camera.

The victim, Jarius Brown had been arrested for auto theft in September 2019, six years ago. The video, which has only now surfaced, shows Brown, naked following a strip search, walking into the jail’s laundry room where he was immediately set upon by two deputies who viciously (sorry, but there’s no other word to describe the attack) began beating him without any warning.

Two deputies have since resigned and a third was suspended and sheriff’s office internal records indicated “there was no way of defending” the beating.

Former deputy Javarrea Pouncy pleaded guilty to use of excessive force. He was sentenced to three years in federal prison. Another deputy, DeMarkes Grant, pleaded guilty to obstructing justice and served 10 months in prison.

Local judge, Amy McCartney, dismissed the Brown’s against the deputies (more home cooking, perhaps?) ruling in 2023 the beating did not rise to the level of a “crime of violence.” An appeals court REVERSED THAT RULING. Brown’s lawyers are seeking damages for his injuries and medical expenses. I’m betting that internal memo of “no defense” is going to turn up as a key exhibit in the trial, if it ever gets that far. The trial most likely will result in a confidential settlement so the public may be kept from knowing how much the sheriff’s department has cost taxpayers.

But get this: it took State Police more than a year to analyze the video and to interview Brown. Then, State Police cleared the deputies of wrongdoing, saying that Brown was the “aggressor.”

Parenthetically, this would’ve been a chapter in my book Louisiana’s Rogue Sheriffs: A Culture of Corruption had this information become public before now.

Brown’s beating occurred only four months after another black man, Ronald Greene, was beaten to death by four State Police and a Union Parish Sheriff’s deputy. Officers then lied outright to Greene’s mother, saying he was killed when his car hit a tree while fleeing officers. He did hit a tree, but it caused only minimal damage and Greene could be heard on video as he pleaded for his life as the troopers beat and tasered him – after the collision.

One of the officers involved was terminated and took his own life but no one else – not one – ever served a day in jail for the killing. Mustian was one of the reporters who covered that incident, as well.

Only a month before Brown’s beating, which left him semi-conscious and with a broken nose, a fractured eye socket and hideously swollen face, another DeSoto Parish deputy was charged with malfeasance for tackling and punching a man walk into a grocery store. In exchange for charges being dismissed, he agreed to a permanent ban from ever working again in law enforcement.

In another case, Mustian said, a DeSoto Parish deputy was charged with THIRD-DEGREE RAPE after ordering a woman he’d arrested to perform oral sex on him.

The video of the Brown attack took six years to surface, former District Attorney Gary Evans said, because the sheriff’s office fought its release. Evans called the State Police decision “a great miscarriage of justice at the state level,” adding that it showed “the system has broken down and doesn’t protect citizens.” He said the federal government was the only avenue of redress.

And federal prosecutors have indeed become involved, arriving at a conclusion of polar opposite to State Police, saying that Brown was the victim of excessive force.

So, what do State Police have to say about their decision there was “not sufficient evidence” deputies had committed a crime?

In an email to AP, State Police shill Russell Graham wrote, “LSP remains committed to thorough, impartial investigations and working with partners to ensure accountability and uphold public trust.” He added that the agency had conducted “a thorough investigation of this matter.”

Apparently in the same manner that they conducted a thorough investigation of the Ronald Greene death.

If you are a person of color, LSP is not a police agency, it is a police state agency. There’s a distinct difference.