Trooper’s mic records talk of beating, choking Black man

In graphic, matter-of-fact chatter picked up on his bodycamera mic, a Louisiana State trooper implicated in the death of a Black man can be heard talking of beating and choking him before “all of a sudden he just went limp.”

“I beat the ever-living f--out of him,” the trooper said in a 27-second audio clip obtained by The Associated Press.

It is the most direct evidence to emerge yet in the death last year of Ronald Greene, which troopers initially blamed on injuries from a car crash at the end of a chase. The long-simmering case has now become the subject of a federal civil rights investigation and growing calls for authorities to release the full body-cam video.

Master Trooper Chris Hollingsworth, who himself died last week in a single-car crash, is heard recounting the May 2019 arrest of Greene in rural north Louisiana on audio provided to the AP through an intermediary who asked not to be identified because the case remains under investigation. Its veracity was confirmed by two law enforcement officials familiar with the case who spoke on condition of anonymity. State Police did not dispute the tape’s authenticity.

Hollingsworth, who was white, was the only one of six troopers placed on leave last month following an administrative investigation that State Police did not open until late August.

Initially, Greene’s family was told that the 49-year-old died from injuries suffered in a crash into a “shrub/tree” at the end of a long car chase that began over an unspecified traffic violation.