Black man’s family views graphic video of in-custody death
BATON ROUGE, La. — Family members viewed long- secret body- camera video this week of a Black man who died in Louisiana State Police custody, their attorney calling it damning footage that shows troopers choking and beating the man, repeatedly jolting him with stun guns and dragging him face- down across the pavement.
Ronald Greene’s mother and sister wailed “like they were at a funeral” Wednesday after meeting with Gov. John Bel Edwards and watching a half-hour of the footage of the May 2019 encounter that is now the subject of a federal civil rights investigation, their attorney told The Associated Press.
“This family has been lied to the entire time about what happened,” said civil rights attorney Lee Merritt, who also viewed the footage. “The video was very difficult to watch. It’s one of those videos like George Floyd and even Ahmaud Arbery where it’s just so graphic.”
The video, which police have refused to release publicly, only added to persistent questions about Greene’s death, such as why State Police initially blamed it on a car crash and why they waited more than a year to discipline one of the responding officers. Master Trooper Chris Hollingsworth died in a single-car crash last month just hours after learning he had been fired over his role in the incident.
The meeting fol - lowed AP’s disclosure of a 27- second audio clip from Hollingsworth’s body camera in which he can be heard telling a colleague, “I beat the everliving f--- out of him,” and of graphic pictures of Greene’s body released by his family showing deep bruises to his face and cuts on his head.
Greene’s family on Wednesday heard that exchange and a string of “abusive language” the troopers used during the arrest, Merritt said, even though Greene made no effort to flee following a high-speed chase.
At one point, an officer is seen placing a foot on Greene “while another hogties him,” he said. One trooper can be heard calling Greene a “stupid son of a b----,” Merritt said, while another cautions that “we shouldn’t tase him any more.”
“Ronald immediately surrendered at his first contact with law enforcement. When the vehicle stopped, he put his hands up and said, ‘ I’m sorry,’” Merritt said. “His dying words were, ‘I’m sorry.’”
The AP also has obtained a medical report showing even an emergency room doctor doubted the initial police account of Greene’s death from the moment he arrived dead at the hospital, bruised and bloodied with two stungun prongs in his back.
The medical report — cited in a federal wrongful death lawsuit but not previously made public — has been held up by Greene’s family as evidence that troopers were actively engaged in a cover up.
“Does not add up,” Dr. Omokhuale Omokhodion wrote.
Police initially told Greene’s family he had “died on impact” after crashing into a tree, the doctor wrote.
But in an addendum to his report, Omokhodion wrote that law enforcement ultimately told him Greene “had been involved in a fight and struggle with them where he was tased three times.” Two taser probes remained in Greene’s back even after he arrived at Glenwood Regional Medical Center in West Monroe.