File picture: Gov. John Bel Edwards speaks throughout a information convention on the Louisiana State Capitol in Baton Rouge, La., on Thursday, June 17, 2021.
By Jim Mustain and Jake Bleiberg | Related Press
BATON ROUGE, La. — Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat in a deep-red state, was immersed in a troublesome reelection marketing campaign when he obtained a textual content message from the pinnacle of the state police: Troopers had engaged in “a violent, prolonged battle” with a Black motorist, ending with the person’s loss of life.
Edwards was notified of the circumstances of Ronald Greene’s loss of life inside hours of his Might 2019 arrest, in line with textual content messages The Related Press obtained by way of a public information request. But the governor saved quiet as police informed a a lot totally different story to the sufferer’s household and in official studies: that Greene died from a crash following a high-speed chase.
For 2 years, Edwards remained publicly tight-lipped in regards to the contradictory accounts and attainable cover-up till the AP obtained and revealed long-withheld body-camera footage displaying what actually occurred: white troopers jolting Greene with stun weapons, punching him within the face and dragging him by his ankle shackles as he pleaded for mercy and wailed, “I’m your brother! I’m scared! I’m scared!”
The governor has rebuffed repeated interview requests and his spokesperson wouldn't say what steps, if any, Edwards took within the speedy aftermath of Greene’s loss of life. “The governor doesn't direct disciplinary or felony investigations,” stated spokesperson Christina Stephens, “nor wouldn't it be applicable for him to take action.”
What the governor knew, when he knew it and what he did have turn into questions in a federal civil rights investigation of the lethal encounter and whether or not police brass obstructed justice to guard the troopers who arrested Greene.
“The query is: When did he discover out the reality?” stated Sen. Cleo Fields, a Baton Rouge Democrat who's vice-chair of a legislative committee created final yr to dig into complaints of extreme drive by state police.
The FBI has questioned folks in current months about Edwards’ consciousness of assorted features of the case, in line with legislation enforcement officers who spoke on situation of anonymity to debate the probe. Investigators have centered partially on an influential lawmaker saying the governor downplayed the necessity for a legislative inquiry.
The governor’s spokesperson stated he's not underneath investigation and neither is any member of his employees.
Edwards saved quiet in regards to the Greene case by way of his reelection marketing campaign in 2019 and thru a summer time of protests in 2020 over racial injustice within the wake of George Floyd’s killing. Even after Greene’s household filed a wrongful-death lawsuit that introduced consideration to the case in late 2020, Edwards declined to characterize the actions of the troopers and refused calls to launch their body-camera video, citing his concern for not interfering with the federal investigation.
However when the AP obtained and revealed the long-withheld footage of the encounter that left Greene bloody, immobile and limp on a darkish street close to Monroe, Edwards lastly spoke out.
Edwards condemned the troopers, calling their actions “deeply unprofessional and extremely disturbing.”
“I'm disillusioned in them and in any officer who stood by and didn't intervene,” the governor stated in an announcement. He later known as the troopers’ actions “felony.”
However Edwards, a lawyer from a protracted household line of Louisiana sheriffs, additionally has made feedback because the launch of the video that downplay troopers’ actions, even reprising the narrative that Greene might have been killed by a automobile crash.
“Did he die from accidents sustained within the accident?” Edwards stated in response to a query on a radio present in September. “Clearly he didn’t die within the accident itself as a result of he was nonetheless alive when the troopers had been partaking with him. However what was the reason for loss of life? I don’t know that that was falsely portrayed.”
Weeks after these remarks, a reexamined post-mortem commissioned by the FBI rejected the crash concept outright, attributing Greene’s loss of life to “bodily battle,” troopers repeatedly beautiful him, placing him within the head, restraining him at size and Greene’s use of cocaine.
The federal investigators have taken curiosity in a dialog Edwards had final June with state Rep. Clay Schexnayder, the highly effective Republican Home speaker who was contemplating a legislative inquiry into the Greene case following the discharge of the video.
Schexnayder stated this week that the governor informed him there was no want for additional motion from the legislature as a result of “Greene died in a wreck.” The speaker stated he by no means moved ahead with the investigation to keep away from interfering with the federal probe.
The governor’s spokesperson acknowledged he briefed the legislative management on his “understanding of the Greene investigation” and stated his remarks had been constant together with his public statements. The U.S. Division of Justice declined to remark.
“It’s time to search out out what occurred, who knew what and when, and if anybody has coated it up,” Schexnayder informed the AP. “The Greene household deserves to know the reality.”
Edwards obtained phrase of the Greene case in a textual content from then-Louisiana State Police Superintendent Kevin Reeves on Might 10, 2019, at 10 a.m., about 9 hours after the lethal arrest.
“Good morning. An FYI,” the message learn. “Early this morning, troopers tried to cease a car in Ouachita Parish. The driving force fled through two parishes in extra of 110 mph, finally crashing. Troopers tried to position the motive force underneath arrest. However, a violent, prolonged battle befell. After a while fighting the suspect, troopers had been joined by a Union Parish deputy and had been in a position to take the suspect into custody. … The suspect remained combative however grew to become unresponsive shortly earlier than EMS arrived.”
The reason given to Edwards, which his spokesperson known as a “commonplace notification,” was far totally different from what Greene’s household says it was being informed by troopers at nearly the identical time — that the 49-year-old died on influence in a automobile crash on the finish of a chase. A coroner’s report that day signifies Greene was killed in a motorcar accident and a state police crash report makes no point out of troopers utilizing drive.
Reeves ended his textual content by telling the governor that the person’s loss of life was underneath investigation.
“Thanks,” Edwards responded.
These phrases had been among the many few statements from Edwards himself launched in response to an intensive public-records request the AP filed in June for supplies regarding Greene’s loss of life. The governor’s workplace has not launched any messages from Edwards to his employees and has but to totally reply to a separate December request for his texts with three high police officers.
A whole bunch of different emails and textual content messages launched by the governor’s workplace present that whereas he has publicly distanced himself from the case and problems with state police violence, his employees has been extra engaged behind the scenes, together with his high lawyer repeatedly contacting state and federal prosecutors in regards to the Greene case.
Alexander Van Hook, who till December oversaw the civil rights investigation into Greene’s loss of life because the performing U.S. lawyer in Shreveport, stated in November there was no try by the governor to affect the investigation. “That wouldn’t go over very nicely with us if there had been,” Van Hook informed AP.
Louisiana Legal professional Basic Jeff Landry, a Republican, stated Edwards had an obligation to at the very least comply with up with the pinnacle of the state police after being knowledgeable of Greene’s loss of life.
“When one thing goes incorrect … he’s shocked,” Landry stated, “when behind the scenes he's intimately concerned in attempting to manage the message and deform it from the general public.”
In the meantime, state police lately acknowledged that the division “sanitized” the cellphone of Reeves, deliberately erasing messages after he abruptly retired in 2020 amid AP’s preliminary reporting on Greene’s loss of life. The company stated it did the identical to the cellphone of one other former police commander, Mike Noel, who resigned from a regulatory publish final yr as he was set to be questioned in regards to the case by lawmakers. Police stated such erasures are coverage.
Edwards’ workplace stated the governor first realized of the “allegations surrounding Mr. Greene’s loss of life” in September 2020 — the identical month by which a state senator despatched Edwards’ legal professionals a replica of the Greene household’s wrongful-death lawsuit that had been filed just a few months earlier.
Nobody has but been charged with against the law in Greene’s loss of life and solely one of many troopers concerned in his arrest has been fired. Grasp Trooper Chris Hollingsworth, who was recorded saying he “beat the ever-living f— out of” Greene, died in a automobile crash in 2020 quickly after studying he would lose his job.
In early October 2020, after AP revealed audio of Hollingsworth’s feedback, the governor reviewed video of Greene’s deadly arrest, his spokesperson stated.
Some observers of Edwards’ response to the Greene case see it as partly political calculation. On the time of the lethal arrest, the centrist Democrat was in a tricky reelection marketing campaign in a deeply conservative state towards a Republican backed by Donald Trump. His path to reelection relied on excessive Black turnout and crossover assist from legislation enforcement.
Greene’s loss of life — and the footage that finally went viral — would have “politically threatened each voting teams concurrently,” stated Joshua Stockley, a political scientist on the College of Louisiana Monroe.
However the first public indications that Greene had been abused didn't emerge till months after Edwards eked out 51% of the vote over businessman Eddie Rispone. He gained largely as a consequence of large turnout by Black voters in city areas, taking 90% of the vote in Orleans Parish, the 60% Black parish that features New Orleans.
“I discover it arduous to imagine that the discharge of this video throughout the election wouldn't have had a profound consequence,” Stockley stated. “It might have been huge.”
Bleiberg reported from Dallas. Former AP journalist Melinda Deslatte contributed to this report.