Justice Department opens inquiry into Louisiana State Police

The U.S. Justice Department is opening a sweeping civil rights investigation into the Louisiana State Police amid mounting evidence that the agency has a pattern of looking the other way in the face of beatings of mostly Black men, including the deadly 2019 arrest of Ronald Greene.

The federal “pattern-or-practice” probe, which officials familiar with the matter told The Associated Press would be announced later Thursday, comes more than three years after white troopers were captured on long-withheld body-camera video beating, stunning and dragging Greene on a rural roadside near Monroe. Despite lengthy, ongoing federal and state investigations into a death that troopers initially blamed on a car crash, no one has yet been charged.

An AP investigation found Greene’s arrest was among at least a dozen cases over the past decade in which state police troopers or their bosses ignored or concealed evidence of beatings, deflected blame and impeded efforts to root out misconduct. Dozens of current and former troopers said the beatings were countenanced by a culture of impunity, nepotism and, in some cases, outright racism.

AP’S reporting found troopers have made a habit of turning off or muting body cameras during pursuits. When footage is recorded, the agency has routinely refused to release it. And a recently retired supervisor who oversaw a particularly violent clique of troopers told internal investigators last year that it was his “common practice” to rubber-stamp officers’ use-of-force reports without ever reviewing body-camera video.

In some cases, troopers omitted uses of force such as blows to the head from official reports, and in others troopers sought to justify their actions by claiming suspects were violent, resisting or escaping, all of which were contradicted by video footage.

Those who confirmed the “pattern-or-practice” investigation spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the inquiry before it was announced.

A Justice Department spokesperson did not provide any immediate comment. A state police spokesman had no immediate comment but said the agency planned to issue a statement later Thursday.

Black leaders have for months been urging the Justice Department to launch a broader investigation into potential racial profiling by the overwhelmingly white state police, similar to other probes opened over the past year in Minneapolis, Louisville and Phoenix.

By its own tally, 67% of state police uses of force in recent years were against Black people, who make up 33% of the state’s population.

MELINDA DESLATTE/AP 2021 At a May 2021 news conference in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Col. Lamar Davis, superintendent of the Louisiana State Police, speaks about the agency’s release of video involving the death of Ronald Greene.