Police boss is open to federal oversight

BATON ROUGE >> The head of the Louisiana State Police said Friday he wants to know why 67% of his agency’s uses of force in recent years have been directed at Black people, and would welcome a U.S. Justice Department “pattern and practice” probe into potential racial profiling if that is deemed necessary.

“If the community is concerned about that, obviously I am concerned about that,” Col. Lamar Davis told The Associated Press in an interview. “I’m a Black male. I don’t want to feel like I’m going to be stopped and thrown across a car just because of that, and I don’t want anyone else to feel that way.”

Davis’ comments came a day after an AP investigation identified 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. It included several body camera videos of violent arrests that had been locked away for years.