NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Louisiana state troopers were captured on body camera video stunning, punching and dragging a Black man as he apologized for leading them on a high-speed chase — footage of the man’s last moments alive that The Associated Press obtained after authorities refused to release it for two years.
“I’m your brother! I’m scared! I’m scared!” Ronald Greene can be heard telling the white troopers as the unarmed man is jolted repeatedly with a stun gun before he even gets out of his car along a dark, rural road.
The 2019 arrest outside Monroe, Louisiana, is the subject of a federal civil rights investigation. But unlike other in-custody deaths across the nation where body camera video was released almost immediately, Greene’s case has been shrouded in secrecy and accusations of a cover-up.
Louisiana officials have rebuffed repeated calls to release footage and details about what caused the 49-year-old’s death. Troopers initially told Greene’s family he died on impact after crashing into a tree during the chase. Later, State Police released a one-page statement acknowledging only that Greene struggled with troopers and died on his way to the hospital.
Only now in the footage obtained by the AP from one trooper’s body camera can the public see for the first time some of what happened during the arrest.
The 46-minute clip shows one trooper wrestling Greene to the ground, putting him in a chokehold and punching him in the face while another can be heard calling him a “stupid motherfucker.“
Greene wails “I’m sorry!” as another trooper delivers another stun gun shock to his backside and warns, “Look, you’re going to get it again if you don’t put your fucking hands behind your back!” Another trooper can be seen briefly dragging the man facedown after his legs had been shackled and his hands cuffed behind him.
Instead of rendering aid, the troopers leave the heavyset man unattended, facedown and moaning for more than nine minutes, as they use sanitizer wipes to wash blood off their hands and faces.
“I hope this guy ain’t got fucking AIDS,” one of the troopers can be heard saying.
After a several-minute stretch in which Greene is not seen on camera, he appears again, limp, unresponsive and bleeding from his head and face. He is then loaded onto an ambulance gurney, his arm cuffed to the bedrail.
In many parts of the video, Greene is not on screen, and the trooper appears to cut the microphone off about halfway through, making it difficult to piece together exactly what was happening at all times. At least six troopers were on the scene of the arrest but not all had their body cameras on.
“They murdered him. It was set out, it was planned,” Greene’s mother, Mona Hardin, said Wednesday. “He didn’t have a chance. Ronnie didn’t have a chance. He wasn’t going to live to tell about it.“
An attorney for Greene’s family, Lee Merritt, said the footage “has some of the same hallmarks of the George Floyd video, the length of it, the sheer brutality of it.”
“He apologized in an attempt to surrender,” Merritt said.
Louisiana State Police declined to comment on the contents of the video. In a statement, the agency said the “premature public release of investigative files and video evidence in this case is not authorized and … undermines the investigative process and compromises the fair and impartial outcome.”
State Police brass initially argued the troopers’ use of force was justified — “awful but lawful,” as ranking officials described it — and did not open an administrative investigation until 474 days after Greene’s death.
“Police departments have got to stop putting roadblocks up to information that is, in the public’s eye, questionable. They have to reveal all that they know, when they know it,” said Andrew Scott, a former Boca Raton, Florida, police chief who testifies as an expert witness in use-of-force cases. “It suggests that you’re hiding something.”
Scott said dragging the handcuffed man facedown by his ankle shackles was “malicious, sadistic, completely unnecessary.”
“That should never have never happened,” he said. “You’ve got the guy completely compromised. He’s not hurting anybody.”
Charles Key, another use-of-force expert and former Baltimore police lieutenant, questioned the troopers’ decision to leave Greene unattended, handcuffed and prone for several minutes, calling the practice “just dead wrong.”
“You don’t leave somebody lying on the ground, particularly after you’ve had this fight,” Key said. “The training has been for a number of years that, as soon as you get someone under control, you put them on their side to facilitate their breathing … and particularly this guy, because he was very heavy.“
Gov. John Bel Edwards allowed Greene’s family to view the same body camera footage last year and pledged to release it to the public after the federal investigation runs its course.
Greene’s family has filed a federal wrongful-death lawsuit alleging troopers “brutalized” Greene, and “left him beaten, bloodied and in cardiac arrest” before covering up the cause of death. His family has released graphic photographs of Greene’s body on a gurney, showing deep bruises and cuts on his face and head.
Greene, a barber, failed to pull over for an unspecified traffic violation shortly after midnight on May 10, 2019, about 30 miles south of the Arkansas state line. That’s where the video obtained by AP begins, with Trooper Dakota DeMoss chasing Greene’s SUV on rural highways at over 115 mph.
Seconds before the chase ended, DeMoss warned on his radio: “We got to do something. He’s going to kill somebody.”
As DeMoss and Master Trooper Chris Hollingsworth rush Greene’s SUV, he can be seen appearing to raise his hands and saying over and over, “OK, OK. I’m sorry.”
Hollingsworth shocks Greene with a stun gun within seconds through the driver’s side window as both troopers demand he get out of the vehicle.
Greene exits through the passenger side as the troopers wrestle him to the ground. One trooper can be heard saying “He’s grabbing me” as they try to handcuff him. “Put your hands behind your back, bitch,” one trooper says.
Hollingsworth strikes Greene multiple times and appears to lie on one of his arms before he is finally handcuffed.
At one point, Trooper Kory York yanks Greene’s leg shackles and briefly drags the man on his stomach even though he isn’t resisting.
York was suspended without pay for 50 hours for the dragging and for improperly deactivating his body camera. York told investigators the device was beeping loudly and his “mind was on other things.”
Hollingsworth, in a separate recording obtained by AP, can be heard telling a colleague at the office that “he beat the ever-living fuck out of” Greene.
If the police were afraid of being falsely accused of brutality, they’d be actively demanding to be filmed at all times. But they don’t.
If the police didn’t want to be seen as a gang, they’d be demanding the repeal of all laws against victimless actions so their only focus would be on violent criminals. But they don’t.
If the police feared for their lives in every encounter with civilians, they’d do everything they could to reduce the number of encounters. For example, they’d demand the repeal of quotas, and they’d feel relieved when social workers want to take over some of those encounters. But they don’t.
If the police didn’t want to be judged as a group when one of them does something bad, they’d be actively and openly condemning the bad police officers and making sure everyone witnesses that. But they don’t.
It’s almost as if everything the police say is a lie.
MINNEAPOLIS—Shaken by the guilty verdict delivered in the trial of Derek Chauvin, local police officer Edward Margolin took comfort Tuesday by remembering that this outcome wasn’t representative of the system at large. “Moments like this can be tough, but it helps to take a step back and remember that this is the exception that proves the rule,” said Margolin, confirming that despite the conviction he still believed in the justice system’s fundamental purpose of exonerating police officers. “In these trying times, I remember everything I have to be grateful for—qualified immunity, powerful police associations, massive budgets, and all the officers I know who have done similar stuff to Chauvin and gotten away scot-free, and it starts to make me calm down. It’s important not to let a little hiccup like this make you lose sight of the big picture.” At press time, a cheerful Margolin had fully regained his faith in the system after taking out a baton and breaking a demonstrator’s arm.
If you were found guilty of raping a drunk woman in a company vehicle, while wearing your company uniform, do you think you’d get to keep your job?
If a few years later you were caught on-video bragging about using a company car to run over anti-racist protestors, do you think you’d still get to keep your job?
No? Well, I guess you’re not Sargeant Clifton McHale of the Boston Police Department! He wasn’t even demoted after doing both of those things.
Sgt. Clifton McHale of the Boston Police Department – who was previously suspended after being accused of raping a drunk woman in a police car while in uniform – brags on-camera about running over anti-racist protestors and is still on-duty.
20 year old Daunte Wright was murdered by police in Brooklyn Center, a Minneapolis suburb today, April 11th, 2021 during a traffic stop.
As of 7pm, his body is still laying on the ground. Riot cops are on the scene with “less lethals” AND live weapons in response to a large crowd that has formed to hold space for grief and anger. Daunte’s mother is there and speaking, and she shared the above photo of Daunte.
The Derek Chauvin trial is currently ongoing and these police are out here still actively murdering our neighbors. ACAB forever.
