Louisiana Voice

For a show-and-tell presentation, Louisiana State Police Superintendent Col. Lamar Davis’s Friday afternoon press conference called ostensibly to address problems and to explain reforms to the agency rated a C at best.

For substance. a grade of D- would be more appropriate.

For almost a full hour, Davis mechanically read through policy changes implemented at LSP in the wake of the beating death of Ronald Greene and the non-fatal beating of another Black man in LSP’s north Louisiana black hole, aka Troop F.

Davis then took questions for about half-an-hour from the gathered media but generally danced around all the questions with the basic denials of published reports stemming from the Greene matter and the usual promises of diversity, accountability and transparency.

With recent local TV reports of Lt. John Clary’s perk duty last week as body guard for Louisiana Tech University football coach Skip Holtz during the team’s game at Starkville, Mississippi swirling in my head, I wanted so badly to ask the following question:

With Division I Louisiana college football coaches surrounded by 85 beefy scholarship players, plus any non-scholarship players, why do they need a Louisiana State Trooper tagging along for protection, especially since those TV reports also showing two local Ruston city police officers including in Holtz’s “protection” detail?

Instead, I asked if that Clary body cam video of the Greene beating, which we were told didn’t exist until it was revealed in May of this year that it did, in fact, exist, was the only video available of the incident that led to Greene’s death.

Davis paused for a moment before admitting that it was not the only video.

That was an important admission because LouisianaVoice published a story almost exactly one year ago (Sept. 12, 2020) in which a RETIRED STATE TROOPER told of seeing “part of the video” and “overheard part of the conversation” of LSP personnel as they reviewed the video. “There were several troopers in the room as I walked past. Any time there’s lethal-force death, it’s pushed up the chain of command,” he told LouisianaVoice. “They were talking about something being wrong.”

At the time that story ran – 16 months after Greene’s death – LSP had yet to acknowledge publicly that there was any ongoing investigation and it wasn’t until after we ran that story that any disciplinary action was taken.

So, while all the hoopla has been about the late “discovery” of the Clary video, LSP already had another video of the event at least a year ago but it wasn’t until the Clary video was leaked in May this year that all hell broke loose.

But Davis, true to the so-called Blue Wall of Silence, stood before electronic and print media on Friday and proclaimed that the LSP investigation had found no evidence of wrongdoing by Clary’s denial of the existence of video for two full years.

That prompted one local TV reporter present at the press conference to ask rhetorically after the event, “If it wasn’t Clary’s fault that the video wasn’t produced, whose fault was it?”

To be fair, Davis is in a tough spot. He was not superintendent when Greene and OTHER MINORITIES were beaten senseless by Troop F troopers. Kevin Reeves, formerly of Troop F, was head of State Police at that time.

But in spite of his best intentions, his performance on Friday was less than inspiring as he laid out his plans to improve the public perception of Louisiana State Police, especially in the manner in which minorities are dealt with.

The only thing missing was a Power Point presentation, but he even made a stab at that with a screen showing steps he has made for the department since October 2020:

• Expanded the Use of Force Policy, including a ban on chokeholds, a ban on the use of impact weapons to the head or neck area, and a mandate to carry a “less-lethal option.”
• Implemented a Duty to Intervene Policy and enhanced accountability in the Body Worn Camera Policy.
• Mandated Implicit Bias Training and developing de-scalation training for all personnel.
• Initiated administrative investigations regarding allegations of misconduct to ensure accountability immediately after learning of an incident.
• Increased accountability in Use of Force reporting, and video evidence revies process (and) continuing to prescribe discipline and accountability consistently, fairly and equitably throughout the agency.
• Updated the Pursuit Policy to outline the provision for ramming which is prohibited except where deadly force is authorized to save lives.
• Continued promotion and expansion of the Trooper and Employee Assistance Program to support the mental health of (LSP) personnel and ensure operational readiness in the field.
• Establishing a program designed to standardize the release of critical information as soon as possible (body worn camera and in-car camera footage).

All of which begs the question of why weren’t these reforms implemented years ago?

The controversy with Troop F isn’t new. In 2005, during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, it was F-Troopers who dragged New Orleans attorney Ashton O’Dwyer from his home right after the storm even though his residence was untouched by the hurricane and took him to a holding pen where he was shot with bean bags, sprayed with pepper spray and beaten.

The physical abuse left O’Dwyer in such an agitated mental state that it eventually cost him his partnership in a prestigious New Orleans law firm. LSP has never acknowledged its part or accepted any responsibility for ruining the man’s career, his livelihood, and his marriage – his very life.

State Police Investigator Albert Paxton said in his report that Trooper Chris Hollingsworth turned off his body camera before the beating that lead to Greene’s death but when he said Hollingsworth should be charged with obstruction, LSP leadership blocked him from pursuing the charge, again conjuring images of that Blue Wall of Silence.

But now, things are going to be better.

Col. Lamar Davis said so.

(Editor’s note: As this was being editing for posting, a story came through indicating that U.S. Rep. Troy Carter has written a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice in which he is seeking a federal investigation of LSP misconduct. You can read the letter by clicking HERE.)

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LouisianaVoice‘s September is officially in its 8th day (though in reality it’s only the 5th day because Hurricane Ida knocked out our power for six days).

While many are still without power, the job done by the crews who worked under brutal conditions in the heat and humidity to get the lights back on and the National Guard and volunteer groups who worked tirelessly to provide meals and water to those who were without are the true heroes of summer.

While we were fortunate in that we suffered no property damage from Ida, many, including some on my street, were not so lucky and were it not for the utility crews and volunteers, things would have been so much worse.

So, I would ask that before you consider making a contribution to LouisianaVoice, you please make a donation to your Food Bank or some other volunteer relief organization. We owe them so very much.

Thank you.

Tom Aswell

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“Let’s be clear:  rape is a crime and Texas will work tirelessly that we eliminate all rapists from the streets of Texas by aggressively going out and arresting them and prosecuting them and getting them off the streets.” 

—Texas Governor Greg Abbott (right after fixing the state’s electrical grid and ensuring every Texan’s constitutional right to vote, of course. Question, Guv: Why weren’t the rapists eliminated before passing your restrictive abortion law? Looks to me like you got the cart before the hoss.)

“None of this is about supporting life. What this is about is controlling women’s bodies and controlling people who are not cisgender men. He speaks from such a place of deep ignorance, and it’s not just ignorance. It’s ignorance that is hurting people across this country.”

–Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (even those gawd-awful leftist socialist-commie anarchists can speak undeniable truths that make idiots appear as the blathering, radical, misogynistic frothing-at-the-mouth bigots they are).

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Apparently, my not-so-subtle parody of comparing Donald Trump’s perpetual fundraising efforts to our own twice-a-year appeal for support yesterday struck a raw nerve with at least one reader.

While he may be offended at my dig at his orange-tinted hero, I won’t apologize. I’ll just say he needs to take a crash course in tolerance and learn to laugh more. Life’s just too short to go around with your feelings ruffled all the time.

Having said that, I would continue to ask our more rational readers to continue to support LouisianaVoice with your contributions with no expectations or promises other than a vow to follow the money and to report political shenanigans when and where we find them.

To that end, we are currently looking into the baby adoption industry in Louisiana to examine how newborns are exploited for profit by individuals and agencies.

We’re also examining organized crime connections to a state official that we will be reporting in due course.

But all this takes hours and even days and weeks of research, interviews, and chasing leads, good and bad, to get to root of the stories. All that in turn takes financial resources and that is why I come to readers twice a year – not several times a day as is the practice of one former president – to appeal to their generosity.

So, please do what you can to support our investigative reporting by clicking on the yellow DONATE button to the right of this post to contribute by credit card or you can send a check to:

LouisianaVoice, P.O. Box 922, Denham Springs, Louisiana 70727.

Your help, no matter the amount, is deeply appreciated.

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Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry is taking the correct action in launching an investigation into who was responsible for the decision to move 843 patients from seven nursing homes into a warehouse in Tangipahoa Parish during Hurricane Ida.

Landry told the Baton Rouge Advocate that his office’s goal was “to determine who decided to move these patients to this apparently unsafe and potentially inappropriate facility.”

That’s all well and good, but he could have a problem that we’ll examine later.

The warehousing of the patients in conditions of squalor from piled-up trash, overflowing toilets and non-working air conditioning has been linked to at least seven deaths. Dozens more were subsequently hospitalized.

While sprinkling his statement with such legally-cautious terms as “apparently,” “potentially” and “inappropriate,” Landry nevertheless indicated a willingness to conduct a real investigation. “We wish to determine who authorized that these patients be moved to that facility, who oversaw the movement, who later turned away career staff members of the Louisiana Department of Health when they attempted to look into this situation,” the AG said.

The patients came from River Palms Nursing and Rehab and Maison Orleans Healthcare Center in Orleans Parish, South Lafourche Nursing and Rehab in Lafourche Parish, Park Place Healthcare Nursing Home, West Jefferson Health Care Center and Maison DeVille Nursing Home in Jefferson Parish, and Maison DeVille Nursing Home in Terrebonne Parish.

All seven facilities are owned by Baton Rouge businessman Bob Dean, as is the warehouse, Waterbury Companies, where the patients were taken.

Dean is listed as an officer, director or manager of more than 100 corporate entities, according to Louisiana Secretary of State corporate records. At least 20 of those are related to the medical field, including at least a dozen nursing homes a hospice facility, a dialysis facility, and rehab and therapy facilities and an assisted living facility.

Since the warehousing debacle, the state has shut down the seven nursing homes involved but has done nothing about the other facilities owned by Dean.

The warehousing incident isn’t Dean’s first rodeo.

In 2009, OSHA FINED Louisiana Health Care Consultants, LLC, Dean Building Holdings and Bob Dean Enterprises, Inc. $112,000 for three willful and 10 serious federal health and safety regulation violations for failure to follow federal standards for asbestos-related projects in the construction industry.

The Baton Rouge Advocate’s Gordon Russell reported on Thursday that state regulators have repeatedly hit his nursing homes for inferior and occasional “shocking conditions,” including one resident drowning and another who was found covered in fire ants.

Even the warehousing incident in the wake of Hurricane Ida wasn’t an isolated case. In 1998, as Hurricane Georges approached, residents of three of his New Orleans-area nursing homes were similarly evacuated to a Baton Rouge warehouse – transported in a bus that lacked air conditioning. Two of the evacuees died either during or immediately following the trek.

In that case, Dean was found to have failed to file required documents with the state Department of Health or with Jefferson Parish officials spelling out his evacuation plan. The warehouse where they were taken, the Lyceum Dean in downtown Baton Rouge was in violation of the fire code, city officials said. The building lacked various safety systems, including a sprinkler system, fire alarms or emergency lights.

Dean received a hand-slap after Baton Rouge EMTs were called out to the building on seven different occasions in response to heat-related health issues for residents. He was fined $1500 for the botched Georges evacuation who said the lack of a disaster plan contributed to the death of an 86-year-old who died of a heart attack during the evacuation.

He appealed even that token fine and a state administrative judge reduced it to $1,000, explaining somewhat incredulously that Dean Enterprises was not responsible for the patient’s death but saying that a plan should have been filed.

In the most recent evacuation, Louisiana Department of Hospitals inspectors were barred from the warehouse when they attempted to conduct an inspection on Aug. 31.

For his part, Dean thinks he did a good job. “We only had five deaths within the six days,” he sniffed. “Normally, with 850 people, you’ll have a couple a day. So, we really did good on taking care of people.”

One LouisianaVoice reader said it seems to him that state oversight of nursing homes is a tad “shady.”

There’s a reason for that. The nursing home industry has long been an untouchable industry as far as the Louisiana Legislature is concerned, and the AG’s office could be part and parcel to that atmosphere.

All one has to do is check the campaign contributions of nursing home owners to see why the legislature (a) beats back efforts each year to fund in-home care of elderly patients (nursing homes are funded by Medicaid/Medicare on the basis of occupied beds – ergo, they must keep the beds occupied to keep the funds flowing and (b) the more money nursing homes make, the more in campaign contributions flow to the legislators who keep the nursing home operators happy, who in turn, keep the legislators happy, who in turn…well, you get the drift.

Dean, for example, has a history of supporting political campaigns with generous contributions:

• John Kennedy and his PAC: $30,000;
• Gov. Mike Foster: $2500;
• Former Attorney General Richard Ieyoub: $20,000;
• Gov. John Bel Edwards: $42,500;
• Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff Daniel Edwards (Gov. Edwards’ brother): $6500

Gov. Edwards received more than $165,000 from all nursing home sources, including those from Dean, over the past decade. Others who received significant contributions from nursing homes included:

• Former Gov. Kathleen Blanco: $33,000;
• Former Gov. Bobby Jindal: $80,600;
• Former Attorney General Charles Foti: $7500;
• Former Attorney General Buddy Caldwell: $28,500;
• Former U.S. Sen. David Vitter: $4,750;
• U.S. Sen. John N. Kennedy: $8,750;
• Louisiana Republican Party: $7,250;
• Louisiana Democratic Party: $52,000;

While I would love nothing better than to list all the legislators who have fed at the nursing home teat, the list I downloaded is simply too voluminous to make such a list practical. But rest assured, it shows that the nursing home industry is a major player in what goes on in that 24-story edifice that stands on the banks of Capitol Lake in Baton Rouge.

And though he received no contributions from Dean or any of his entities, Landry’s investigation could be tainted by the fact that he has been the recipient of more than $12,000 from seven nursing homes in Louisiana and a Mississippi company that operates at least 18 nursing homes in Louisiana – which only serves to reinforce my long-held conviction that no political candidate should be allowed to accept contributions from an industry he might regulate or have occasion to investigate.

Let’s hope that Landry doesn’t stumble over the bags of money from the nursing homes during his investigation.

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