Louisiana state police troop’s videotaped brutality threatens to stir up a new George Floyd-style backlash.
Louisiana state police troop’s videotaped brutality threatens to stir up a new George Floyd-style backlash.
W ho needs Black Lives Matter when you’ve got F Troop?
No, this is no ’60s comedy. This is deadly, deadly serious stuff, I’m afraid. The machinations of a Marxist revolutionary movement will not be necessary to frame the nation’s police as the pointy end of America’s systemically racist spear if you’ve got a cabal of police playing to monstrous type. And we do: Troop F of the Louisiana state police.
Brace yourself: Troop F’s abominations more than rival those of the four former Minneapolis police officers fired over their actions leading to the death of George Floyd last year. What is a slander against the overwhelming majority of cops — namely, that they are on the hunt against young black men — appears fitting as applied to these miscreants-with-badges. They are about to join Derek Chauvin in the gallery of infamous household names. Names that will make the already dangerous job of every good police officer in the country markedly tougher.
Ronald Greene’s Death
Two years ago, on May 10, 2019, Ronald Greene died in the custody of Louisiana state police. Greene, a 49-year-old black man, lived in Monroe, La., and worked as a barber. In remission after a two-year struggle with cancer, he was driving south to meet his wife in Florida, according to family members. State troopers claim that Greene was pursued because he failed to stop as directed after a traffic violation of some kind. There are indications that he was intoxicated, but as we shall see, no information from the state can be taken at face value in this sordid story.
It was shortly after midnight when the dangerous high-speed chase began. When state police from Troop F finally got Greene pulled over on the side of a road, he appears to have instantly attempted to surrender, raising his hands and repeatedly stating, “Okay, okay, I’m sorry.” Police nevertheless savagely tased, beat, pepper-sprayed, and manhandled him, including restraining him in a prone position.
As we covered extensively in the George Floyd case, prone restraint of a detainee is disfavored for unduly long spans of time because it makes breathing difficult. In this instance, it was all the more perilous because Greene, besides being grievously injured and possibly intoxicated, was overweight and recovering from a serious illness.
Greene died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. The troopers involved appear to have hidden evidence and caused reports to be falsified in order to conceal what they did. This obviously delayed investigations into Greene’s death. It took state police some 474 days to begin an administrative inquiry. State and federal prosecutors are now on the case — respectively, the district attorney of Union Parish and the Justice Department (the U.S. attorney’s office in New Orleans, together with Main Justice’s Civil Rights Division). The Greene family has also filed a federal wrongful-death lawsuit against the police, similar to the one filed by George Floyd’s family (for which, you may recall, Minneapolis paid a $27 million settlement this spring).
Greene’s death seems to be part of a pattern, implicating white members of Troop F in the abuse of several black men — atrocious behavior troopers bragged and joked about among themselves in text messages and audio recordings.
The case was suddenly thrust into the spotlight last week, just as the nation prepared to mark a year since George Floyd’s killing, because the Associated Press “obtained” and published snippets of video footage from the shocking arrest, which comes from the body camera of one of the involved troopers. State authorities had refused for two years to make any video from the incident public, although they showed at least some of it to members of Greene’s family. Since the AP’s revelations, the state has now disclosed what is claimed to be all of the relevant video footage.
In addition, CNN has reported on the autopsy report, which the network acquired through an unidentified person it describes as “a source with knowledge of the investigation.” Earlier this week, the AP followed up with a report indicating that the commander on the scene lied to investigators about what happened and, for two years, concealed his own body-camera recording from the scene.
In combination, these and other media reports paint a gruesome picture.
‘I Beat the F*** Out of Him’
Troopers chased Greene in the dark of night about 30 miles south of the Arkansas state line. While the autopsy report is highly suspect, the coroner reports that blood testing showed significant amounts of alcohol and cocaine in Greene’s body. Whatever Greene’s condition was, it should go without saying that a hot pursuit of a motorist, racing at speeds topping 115 mph along dark rural roads, is exceedingly dangerous for everyone involved and in the vicinity. As he frantically closed on Greene’s SUV, trooper Dakota DeMoss worried over police radio waves, “We got to do something. He’s going to kill somebody.”
The reporting does not explain exactly how Greene’s vehicle came to a stop. This is a significant issue. The original police version of events was that Greene “died on impact” when he crashed his SUV into a tree. It is not clear that there was a crash at all, let alone a fatal one. The video footage shows that the SUV was pulled over to the side of a road and Greene was very much alive. In their lawsuit, filed a year ago, Greene’s family represents that the front of the SUV showed no signs of having struck anything, and there are no indications of airbag deployment.
As shown by the still images and video thus far disclosed, Greene raised his hands apologetically, repeatedly telling the troopers he was “sorry” and “scared” as he signaled that he was surrendering. But while he was still in the SUV, DeMoss and master trooper Chris Hollingsworth rushed him. In all, there were eventually six troopers on the scene. Collectively, they punched Greene, and Hollingsworth jolted him with a Taser.
Greene was removed from his SUV. One trooper proceeded to wrestle him to the ground in what the AP describes as a chokehold, in addition to punching him in the face. The troopers forced Greene to assume a prone position on the ground, ordering him to put his hands behind his back. When, in the chaos and his obvious pain, Greene didn’t do this fast enough — which police later portrayed as “resistance” — the troopers again began using the stun gun. Greene can be heard screaming and saying, “I’m sorry,” as a trooper warns him, “Look, you’re going to get it again if you don’t put your f***ing hands behind your back!”
Hollingsworth struck Greene several times. Later, in a body-mic recording that the AP reports it has also obtained, Hollingsworth is heard telling an unidentified person, “I beat the living f*** out of [Greene,]” and that he “choked [Greene] and everything else to try to get him under control.” In an elaboration that the video appears to belie, Hollingsworth added: “We finally got him in handcuffs when a third [trooper] got there, and the son of a b**** was still fighting him, was still wrestling with him trying to hold him down. . . . He was spitting blood everywhere and all of a sudden he just went limp.”
On September 22, 2020, as the country was still enveloped in violent rioting over George Floyd’s death, Hollingsworth was informed that he was about to be fired for his role in Greene’s death (a little over a year before Floyd’s). Hollingsworth would not live to become the next Derek Chauvin. Hours after the termination notice, he veered his car in a single-vehicle highway crash and was pronounced dead after a brief hospitalization.
Prone Restraint
Once Greene was handcuffed and shackled by the ankles, the process during which he appears to have been pepper sprayed, he was left in a prone position for at least nine minutes. I have seen no indication that Greene was ever armed during these events. He was not in a position to resist arrest or flee, and the police clearly knew that: Rather than holding him, they observed him from several feet away, as they used hand-sanitizer to clean his blood off their bodies — and quipped that they hoped he didn’t have AIDS.
As the AP reports, and video snippets appear to verify, Greene struggled to breathe, and investigators believe he was making movements consistent with having been pepper-sprayed — squeezing his eyes shut, shaking his head, and moaning in pain. Trooper Kory York, who reportedly turned his body-cam off on his way to the scene, appears to have been referring to pepper spray when he asked Greene if he (York) had Greene’s attention now. According to investigators, a local sheriff’s deputy, who had responded to the scene to assist in the arrest, chimed in, “Yeah, that sh** hurts, doesn’t it.”
When Greene appeared to try propping himself up to draw breath, York screamed at him, “Don’t you turn over! Lay on your belly! Lay on your belly!” In one of the scenario’s most hair-raising moments, York then grabbed Greene by the ankle shackles and dragged him a short distance, his abdomen dragging across the ground. York then knelt on Greene’s back and admonished, “You better lay on your f***ing belly like I told you to, you understand?” Greene replied, “Yes, sir.”
The commander who arrived on the scene was Lieutenant John Clary — a 31-year veteran of the force who, as noted above, later allegedly concealed critical evidence. Investigators are said to have leaked a six-page report to the AP, in which they document his claims that Greene violently resisted arrest and attempted to flee. Based on video evidence, interviews, and forensic evidence, investigators have reportedly concluded that these claims are false.
Clary is also said to have falsely told investigators that the troopers under his command moved Greene into a sitting position and propped his head up “so he could get a clear airway.” Yet, the body-cam footage that Clary allegedly hid records the troopers telling Clary that they did not want to sit Greene up because they were afraid he would spit blood on them. Clary responded, “Then don’t do that.” The AP’s reporting on Clary’s body-cam video elaborates that Greene eventually became “unresponsive”; only at that point did the troopers sit him up, but his head slumped down on his chest, and for the next six minutes they took no action to lift his head and try to get him breathing normally.
Original Police Reports and Autopsy
Greene reportedly died in the ambulance that took him from the scene. State troopers originally told both his family and an emergency-room doctor that he had died from the car crash, a claim the AP says is also in an “initial crash report” troopers filed in connection with the incident. According to a medical report that the AP says it has obtained, the doctor wrote that this version of events “does not add up.” The doctor had observed that Greene arrived dead, with the signs of stun-gun prongs on his back. He was bruised and bloodied in a manner inconsistent with death by impact of a vehicular crash.
As the New York Times recounts, the crash report, like the troopers’ other initial accounts of Greene’s demise, makes no mention of any police use of force. The state police later put out a statement acknowledging that troopers had used force and maintaining that the use of force was justified, but no investigation was opened for well over a year.
Subsequently, a ten-page autopsy report was completed by the Union Parish coroner’s office. According to CNN, the report notes that “no written incident report was provided [by police] despite requests”; that “no detailed information regarding the motor vehicle collision (airbag deployment, vehicle damage, seat belt usage, etc.) was provided”; and that “no emergency services medical records were provided” to the coroner’s office.
The medical examiner did not render a conclusion about the manner of death — i.e., did not select among the standard choices: undetermined, natural causes, accident, suicide, or homicide (in this context, homicide is a medical determination about whether death has been caused by another person’s action; it is not a legal determination that such a person is criminally liable). The omission of a manner-of-death finding evinces that the coroner was suspicious of the police. If the evidence is too inconclusive for a manner-of-death determination, the standard procedure is to render a finding of undetermined. Here, the examiner didn’t do that. Naturally, if homicide is suspected, but critical information has been withheld, coroners would not feel comfortable saying the manner of death is undetermined, even if they would not be prepared to make the homicide finding.
The autopsy notes that there were multiple wounds, particularly to Greene’s head, which appeared “inconsistent with motor vehicle collision injury.” Rather, the wounds seemed traceable to “impact” caused by a “blunt object.” The examination also found that Greene suffered a sternal fracture, as well as “cuts to the aorta and liver,” but no conclusion could be drawn as to whether these resulted from a car crash, a subsequent struggle, or medical efforts to resuscitate the decedent (e.g., CPR, perhaps in the ambulance).
The autopsy report records the finding of significant levels of cocaine and alcohol in Greene’s blood. This finding would have been based on the coroner’s order of scientific testing, so we should probably assume it is more reliable than the palpably dubious information provided by the state police. I’m not sure the same can be said, though, for the coroner’s surmise that Greene could have perished from “cocaine induced agitated delirium complicated by motor vehicle collision, physical struggle, inflicted head injury, and restraint.”
As the CNN report explains, cocaine-induced agitated delirium is a derivative of “excited delirium.” As attested by medical experts during the recent trial of Derek Chauvin related to George Floyd’s death, excited delirium is a controversial diagnosis. It is recognized by some emergency medical professionals, but not by major medical establishment organizations, such as the American Medical Association and the World Health Organization. Greene’s conduct, as recorded in the videos, did not resemble authentic excited-delirium cases described by experts in the Chauvin trial. And to repeat, despite the supposition about excited delirium, the coroner did not feel confident enough to make a manner-of-death finding — even to say “undetermined.” It is telling, though, that the report notes signs of “physical struggle, inflicted head injury, and restraint.”
Troop F: ‘Ass-Whoopin’ Inc.
I’ll close with few more observations about Troop F.
As noted above, master trooper Chris Hollingsworth died in a single-vehicle car crash hours after being informed that he was being fired. In the same administrative investigation that led to Hollingsworth’s termination, Trooper Kory York was merely suspended for 50 hours without pay for abusing Greene, including dragging him by his shackled ankles. Lieutenant John Clary is apparently under investigation for obstructing inquiries into his troopers’ conduct in connection with Greene’s death.
Dakota DeMoss, the first trooper (along with Hollingsworth) to encounter and strike Greene, was arrested in February for a separate, May 2020 brutality incident. DeMoss and two other white Troop F members, Jacob Brown and George Harper, used excessive force against Antonio Harris, a 29-year-old black man. Harris led the troopers on a 29-mile high-speed chase after Brown pulled him over for what the AP describes as “a minor traffic violation.”
The pursuit ended when police deployed a “tire deflation device,” at which point Harris attempted to surrender by lying on the ground face first, with his hands and legs flared out so the troopers could see them. Nevertheless, DeMoss began beating Harris, using a knee strike and a slap in the face. The other two troopers joined in, punching the detainee and pulling his hair. And by now, this will ring familiar: The troopers later falsely claimed that Harris resisted arrest and attempted to flee.
In the interim, the three troopers exchanged text messages joking about the incident. Brown reveled in the thought that the “whoopin” they’d delivered would give Harris “nightmares for a long time.” Observing that Harris was “gonna be sore tomorrow for sure,” Brown added that it “warms my heart knowing we could educate that young man,” and wrote “BET he won’t run from a full grown bear again.” To that, DeMoss replied, “Bet he don’t even cross into LA anymore,” since he was “still digesting that ass-whoopin.” Harper agreed that “he gonna spread the word, that’s for damn sure.”
Jacob Brown, who has been arrested in two brutality cases, is no longer with Troop F, having resigned in March. The investigation of him was prompted by a civil lawsuit, filed by a young black man named Aaron Bowman, who was brutalized by police on May 30, 2019 — about three weeks after Ronald Greene’s death.
Same MO as usual: Suspect pulled over for a minor traffic violation. Brown arrives on the scene having muted the audio on his recorder, then allegedly pelts Bowman with a police flashlight 18 times in the space of just 24 seconds. Bowman, who said he offered no resistance and urged that the police body-cam recorders and eyewitnesses would bear him out, says other police joined in the beating. He claims to have suffered multiple serious injuries, including lacerations to the head, broken ribs, and a fractured arm.
George Floyd died on Memorial Day last year, and mayhem followed — mayhem that led to demands to defund the police, rioting, a year of timorous law enforcement and anti-police violence, and a national surge of crime rates that had already been rising noticeably.
It’s Memorial Day weekend again. Thanks to Louisiana’s Troop F, it’s apt to be another hot summer.