Speaker 1: I walk straight line shackle change, Oh weesome, gird, it's
calling my name. There is nu mercy and it's been
a tentery juice as the huge stream game Wrangle three.
Speaker 2: Come here but.
Speaker 1: By me to die inside these walls, inside the wild.
Speaker 2: And went no girl as I. Hey everyone, and welcome
back to Bloody and Gola, a podcast one and forty
two years in the making. The complete story of America's
Bloody is present. I'm Jim Chapman, and we're back with
another episode of Bloody and Gola. Look, I had a
totally different episode playing for today and some breaking news
out of the state of Louisiana came out that was
pretty significant. Now, this relates to an investigatoration that actually
started back in twenty twenty two against the Louisiana State Police.
It was initiated by the Justice Department, and if you'll remember,
it was just a few episodes ago, I covered a
lawsuit that was filed after an investigation into the Bureau
of Prisons and the Louisiana prison system from the Department
of Justice. Well, they've wrapped up another one and I
think it's something all our listeners would find interesting, So
we'll start out with when this investigation first kicked off,
and back on June ninth of twenty twenty two, the
Justice Department announced an investigation into the Louisiana State Police,
and I'm going to refer to the press release that
they put out at that time. The Justice Department announced
today that it has opened a pattern or practice investigation
into the Louisiana State Police. This investigation will assess whether
LSP used excessive force in whether it engages in racially
discriminatory policing. The investigation will include a comprehensive review of
LSP policies, training, supervision, and force investigations, as well as
the LSP systems of accountability, including misconduct, complaint intake, investigation, review, disposition,
and discipline. And then it goes into I guess you
could say why you shouldn't use excessive force things of
that nature. Now, it's important to keep in mind that
at this time when this started, we had a completely
different governor here in the state of Louisiana. It was
John Bell Edwards. We actually had a completely different colonel
at the Louisiana State Police at the time, it was
Lamar Davis. So at that time June ninth, of twenty
twenty two. There was a response from Governor John Bell
Edwards and Colonel Lamar Davis and I'll cover that, and
the response was Today, the Governor's office and Louisiana State
Police were briefed on the US Department of Justice civil
investigation into the patterns and practices of the Louisiana State Police.
Both Governor Edwards and LSP Colonel Lamar Davis pledge their
support and cooperation with this federal investigation into the agency.
Governor Edwards said, I welcome the US Department of Justice
civil investigation into the pattern of practice of the Louisiana
State Police. It's deeply troubling that allegations of systematic misconduct
exist that will warrant this type of investigation, But it
is absolutely critical that all Louisianas, especially African Americans and
other people of color, have their faith, confidence, and trust
in public safety officers restored. This investigation is one part
of that process. I share the Department of Justice goal
of ensuring the Louisiana State Police or policing in a
constitutional way. It is my expectation in that all employees
of the Louisiana State Police will cooperate fully, and he
kind of goes on and on with that, Colonel Lamar
Davis said, since accepting the position of the Louisiana State
Police Superintendent, I vowed to regain the trust of our citizens.
Our law enforcement partners are political leaders, and the men
and women of our agency. The Department of Public Safety
is comprised of over a thousand dedicated men and women
within our commission rank. Each of them displays selfless service,
courage of integrity on a daily basis, and he kind
of goes on and on with that. So great, everybody's
cooperating with this investigation. Well, look, it took a while.
I'm surprised it took as long as it did. But yesterday,
January sixteenth, twenty twenty five, guess what, the United States
Department of Justice Civil Rights Division and the US Attorney's
Offices released the investigation results into the Louisiana State Police.
We're going to cover that today. I have it right
in front of me, and we're going to start off
with the executive summary that they released with all of
these investigations. It says on the evening of May tenth,
twenty nineteen, near Monroe Louisiana. A Louisiana State Police trooper
tried to stop a forty nine year old black man
by the name of Ronald Green for speeding and running
a red light. Mister Green drove away for fourteen minutes.
Officers pursued him until he lost control of his vehicle,
crashing on the side of the road. According to a
sergeant that LSP regarded as its in house use of
force expert, what happened in the ensuing hours, weeks, and
months was a catastrophic failure in a million different directions
quote unquote. Multiple LSP troopers and sheriff's deputies arrived at
the scene of the crash. They tased mister Green repeatedly
and pulled him out of his car. They punched him,
dragged him by his ankle shackles, and left him face
down in the road. When mister Green tried to roll
onto his stomach, a trooper put his foot on mister
Green's buttocks to hold him down on his stomach. The
trooper later told a supervisor, I'm trying to keep him
laying down. I was going to sit him up, but
I don't want him spitting blood all over us. Mister
Green pleaded, I'm scared. I'm your brother, I'm scared. The
LSP troopers deactivated and or muted their body worn cameras.
When a supervisor arrived, he casually stepped over mister Green,
who lay moaning on the ground, and instead asked the
troopers if they were okay. None of the troopers rendered
aid to mister Green, who became unresponsive and died before
he reached the hospital. After mister Green died, troopers file
reports attributing his death to a car accident. We investigate
crashes every day. One trooper later told us, no way
someone died from a car crash with that damage. One
trooper who was there misdated the incident in an official report.
Lsp's designated use of force expert at the time believed
that it was a deliberate attempt to cover up the incident.
Another trooper miscategorized the camera footage in LSP system, and
the trooper who stepped over mister Green's body that night
signed off on all use of force reports. Over fifteen
months passed before LSP opened an internal affairs investigation into
mister Green's death. In the intervening days of Moss, LLSP
troopers including the one involved in mister Green's death would
go on to assault more drivers. It was not until
September of twenty twenty, sixteen months after the incident, that
LSP fired one of the troopers involved. It would take
until twenty twenty one for LSP to suspend a second
trooper and fire a third who was involved in both
mister Green's death and an assault of a different black man.
Mister Green's death and its aftermath demonstrated serious failures at
LSP excessive force and proper supervision and effective training and
breakdowns and accountability. As our civil pattern or practice investigation revealed,
these failures were not isolated, but part of a larger
practice or pattern of law enforcement conduct that deprives people
in Louisiana their rights under the Constitution. Following a comprehensive investigation,
the Department of Justice has reasonable cause to believe that
the Louisiana State Police engaged in a statewide pattern or
practice of using excessive force, which violates the Fourth Amendment.
Our investigation, opened in twenty twenty two, also includes examining
whether LLSP engaged in racially discriminatory policing. At this time,
we make findings only as to excessive force. Though this
investigation reveals systematic problems, we recognize that most LSP troopers
work hard to keep the public safe. We commend LSP
troopers and staff who defaith their professional lives to serving
the community. LUSP began making much needed reforms after the
video of mister Green's death became public in twenty twenty one,
two years after the incident. We believe those changes may
have been contributed to some recent improvement in use of
force practices. The changes include revising lsp's use of force policy,
creating a Force Investigation Unit to investigate serious uses of force,
and updating training programs. However, more reforms are needed to
remedy the unlawful conduct we found. We describe recommended changes
at the end of this report, and we hope to
work constructively with the state and LSP to implement the reform.
So there you have kind of a brief overview of
why this investigation was opened and pretty disturbing stuff, right. So,
let me give you a little bit of background on LSP.
Spread across sixty four parishes and covering more than fifty
two thousand square miles, Louisiana is home to over four
point six million people. Louisiana has several large cities, including
New Orleans, Shreeport, Lafayette, and its capital, Baton Roudge. The
state's population is approximately fifty six percent white, thirty one
percent Black, seven percent Hispanic, in two percent Asian. Founded
in nineteen thirty six, LSP is responsible for highway safety
and criminal enforcement throughout the state alongside local sheriffs and
city police departments. LSP also assists with disaster recovery in
providing law enforcement support for major events like the NBA
All Star Game in Maudi Gras. Over thirteen hundred people
serve in LSP, both as troopers and civilian law enforcement professionals.
LSP is headed by a Superintendent, who is currently Robert Hodges,
who is appointed by the Secretary of the Department of
Public Safety and Corrections and confirmed by the state Senate.
LSP superintendent has the rank of colonel. An assistant superintendant
serves as lsp's second in command for deputy superintendents each
oversee a major area of lsp's operations and report to
the assistant superintendent. The uniformed troopers that patrol Louisiana roads
are organized into ten troops that cover different parishes around
the state. The troops are grouped into three regions, each
commanded by a major. LSP has policed New Orleans on
and off over the years, and in January of twenty
twenty four, now Governor Jeff Landry announced plans to form
a new troop in New Orleans called Troop NOLA. LSP
has several statewide units. The Criminal Investigation Division investigates crimes
around the state. The Force Investigation Unit investigates serious use
of force by troopers, and the Internal Affairs Unit is
responsible for investigating potential policy violations by troopers and civilian
law enforcement professionals. Then it goes in two recent events,
Ronald Green's death on May tenth of twenty nineteen is
far from the only instance of lsp's excessive force that
has made headlines. In July of twenty eighteen, a trooper
shot and paralyzed a white teenager who was a passenger
in a car stopped for a minor traffic violation when
he tried to run away from the car. In March
of twenty nineteen, a trooper grabbed a black man in
his early twenties by his hair and repeatedly slammed his
head into the hood of a car. In May of
twenty nineteen, a trooper hit a handcuffed forty five year
old black man eighteen times with a flashlight as other
troopers watch, breaking his jaw rest in three ribs. In
July of twenty nineteen, troopers handcuffed a black man, slammed
him against a police car, threw him to the ground,
and repeatedly punched and kneed him. In May of twenty twenty,
at least seven troopers, including one who was involved in
Ronald Green's death, gave a twenty nine year old black
man auote unquote whooping that would give him nightmares for
a long time quote unquote. As the troopers later wrote
in text messages, one trooper told him, quote, I'm gonna
punish you, you dumb bitch unquote. Troopers pulled his hair,
punched him, and repeatedly hit him in the head with
a flashlight. In October of twenty twenty, LSP Superintendent Colonel
Kevin Reaves announced his retirement in the wake of public
reports about excessive force and delayed accountability. At the time,
media outlets reported the troopers were using racially derogatory language
including one trooper who was never disciplined calling a coworker
a fucking in word, and it says the word. In
the following years, Colonel Lamar Davis led LSP and implemented reforms,
including revamping its use of force policy and updating a
training academy's approach and curriculum. LSP also engaged in outside
policing experts to assess lsp's policies, procedures, practices, culture, and training.
LSP issued a report on the assessment in October of
twenty twenty three, which identified problems with training, force and accountability,
as well as data collection and analysis, and other areas,
and recommended further reform. Following Colonel Davis's retirement in January
twenty twenty four, Colonel Robert Hodges took over as lsp's
twenty eight superintendent. So it goes then into the investigation,
and it says the Department of Justice opened this investigation
in twenty twenty two to determine whether LSP engaged in
a pattern or practice of unlawful conduct that deprive people
of their rights. We conducted our investigation to ensure a thorough,
independent and fair assessment of LSP. We interviewed current and
former command staff. We visited troops across Louisiana that with
supervisors and operational staff from Key Headquartered to visions, and
we also participated in dozens of ride alongs with troopers
around the state and observe academy training sessions. They held
town halls, they reviewed LSP records including policies, et cetera.
And they in this note say they want to thank
LSP for cooperating, so that state police were cooperating obviously
with all of this. So let's get into the meat
of it, and that is the findings. What did they
find in the investigations. Well, it says we have reasonable
cause to believe that LSP engages in a statewide pattern
or practice of excessive force that violates the Fourth Amendment.
And it kind of goes on to define excessive force.
And I think it's important that I read this so
you can get a grasp of what the difference is
because there may be kind of a fine line there.
In some cases. It says the use of excessive force
by an officer violates the Fourth Amendment. Whether an officer's
use of forces constitutional is based on the totality of
the circumstances and must be assessed by looking at whether
the officer's actions are objectively reasonable in light of the
facts and circumstances particular to each case. In making this assessment,
relevant factors include whether the suspect posed an immediate threat
to the safety of the officer, the severity of the
crime at issue, whether the suspect is actively resisting or
attempting to evade arrest by flight. Deadly force is permissible
only when an officer has probable cause to believe that
a suspect poses an immediate threat of serious harm to
the officer or another person. In the fifth circuit, analysis
as to the reasonableness of a use of deadly force
should be confined to whether the officer or other persons
were in danger at the moment of the threat that
resulted in the officer's use of deadly force. And it
goes on to give some stats. From twenty eighteen to
twenty twenty three, LSP officers reported more than thirteen hundred
uses of force. We reviewed every LSP shooting and hundreds
of randomly selected force incidents from twenty eighteen to twenty
twenty three, and reviewed each incident by watching body worn
and in camera footage and reading related reports and documents,
we found that Louisiana State troopers across the state use
excessive force. Though lsp's use of unreasonable force was not
limited to any one type of force, we found that
lsp's use of tasers was particularly concerning. We also found
that troopers use excessive force to immediately control encounters, often
within the first few moments of encountering a person, and
without giving the person warning or opportunity to comply. They
also used force on those who, because they are restrained
or otherwise on able, but to fleet, do not pose
a threat or flight risk. Additionally, LSP uses successive force
on people who run from troopers, even when that person
is only suspected of a misdemeanor. This successive force violates
the Fourth Amendment, as discussed below. We also found that
specific practices or policies escalate situations, making the use of
force more likely. So they brought up tasers, and they
get into detail on that. It says LSP troopers across
the state quickly resort to tasers when it's not reasonable
to do so. A senior LSP leader explained to us
that once troopers begin to carry tasers, they were more
likely to escalate from verbal engagement directly to tasing a person,
rather than trying to control someone with lower levels of force.
We saw that pattern play out in the incidents we reviewed.
LSP troopers unreasonably used tasers without warning and against people
who are restrained and did not pose a threat. For example,
an LSP trooper stunned an unarmed man in the back
with a taser while he was lying face down, surrounded
by at least five officers. The trooper went to the
scene to help a local Sheriff's department with a traffic
stop for improper lane usage. We may arrive the driver
had already pulled over and numerous local shaff's deputies were present.
Officers told the man to exit the vehicle put his
hands up. When he did not promptly get out of
his car, the sheriff's deputies and the LSP trooper charged
forward with their guns pointed to him. The officers opened
the door and immediately pulled the man out, even before
they told him to put his hands behind his back,
and before he was completely out of the vehicle, the
trooper demanded tase him. Tase him with the driver pinned
face down on the ground and surrounded by officers. The
LSP trooper pulled up the man's shirt and used his
taser to drive stun the man's bare back. The driver
repeatedly asked what he had done and explained, it's a rental.
I didn't even know how to open the door. The
trooper's use of force was excessive. You think the driver
did not pose an immediate threat to anyone's safety, was
not armed, did not actively resist arrest, and did not
attempt to run. Following the incident, the driver was unable
to walk and was dragged by deputies to a patrol unit.
His clothes were ripped and he was bruised, but there
were also longer term effects. He reported that he became
depressed and angry and has frequent flashbacks. He was ultimately
charged with nothing more than improper lane usage, and the
trooper explained in his use of force report that the
stop was for changing lanes without a signal. That's insane.
We also reviewed incidents in which LSP troopers unreasonably used
tasers on people who fled from them without additional justification
for using force. The use of tasers presents a serious
risk of harm. In addition to pain caused by the
electric shock and probes, tasers may cause seizures, feigning, or
loss of control, which can result in injuries from falls,
including bone fractures and even death. Muscle contractions caused by
tasers can result in hernia, ruptures, dislocation, tear, or other injuries.
Tasers can also cause changes in blood pressure, respiration, and
heart rate. Tasing someone repeatedly or for prolong periods will
compound these risks. So then it goes on to discuss
some situations where LSP used unreasonable force without warning or
opportunity to comply. LSP troopers rapidly use unreasonable force, sometimes
within the first few seconds of an encounter. In multiple cases,
troopers issued a command two or three times in rapid succession,
like show me your ID or here, and then suddenly
grabbed or tackled a person. Troopers used excessive force not
to stop someone from escaping or protect themselves, but because
a person did not immediately follow the trooper's command. For example,
in one case we interviewed, a trooper slammed a bar
patron to the ground when he failed to provide his
ID quickly enough for the trooper. The man who was
accused of slapping a bar employee was standing on the
sidewalk outside the bar when the trooper arrived. The trooper
asked him for his ID, but the man, who did
appear innebreated, remained silent, shaking his head no and putting
his hands out palms up in front of him, then
crossing his arms. The man posed no immediate threat. Rather
than explaining the reason for request or trying to persuade
the man to cooperate, the trooper immediately grabbed the man's
arm forced him to the ground, injuring his nose. Now, yes,
that's wrong, will agree with that that trooper handled that wrong,
But looks as someone on the other side of that
comply man. If they ask you for your fucking ID,
give him your ID, don't sing no in full j arms.
But it doesn't make what he did right. It's the
trooper's responsibility to try to de escalate and get the
guy to cooperate, I guess. In another incident, a trooper
unreasonably tased an unarmed pedestrian before giving him an order
to get out of a car. The trooper was looking
for a stolen vehicle and stopped a man and asked
him where he lived. The trooper did not explain what
he was looking for or why he was questioning the man.
The man ignored the trooper's questions and instead ran away
and got in the passenger seat of a parked car.
The trooper followed the man with his taser drawn, shouting
I'm about to kill your ass. He then opened the
driver's side door and tased the man, who by then
had raised his hands in submission. The trooper tas the
man repeatedly while shouting at him to get out. In total,
the trooper tased the man seven times in less than
a minute before he removed the man from the car
and put him in handcuffs. Then it goes into lspus's
force on people who are not a threat, and it
says LSP troopers use excessive force on people who do
not present an immediate threat, including people who cannot flee
because they are restrained or otherwise trapped. For example, in
one instant, a LSP trooper tased an uncooperative driver multiple
times after a serious traffic accident. When troopers responded to
the side of the crash, the driver refused to come
out of his returned vehicle. Once the man was out
of the car, he tensed and pulled his arms away
to avoid being handcuffed by an assisting law enforcement officer
who mistake number one for that guy. The trooper tackled
him to the ground and punched him in the head
while the other officers handcuffed the man. The trooper then
tased the handcuffed man again without warning when the man
would not lift his legs to be hog tied in
the back seat of the trooper's vehicle. He was not
posing a threat to the trooper or attempting to flee
at the time. Just prior to the man had fallen
headfirst from the back seat of the trooper's vehicle, and
though he had initially kicked when the trooper attempted to
place the legs restraints on him, he was no longer
doing so. Law enforcement organizations advise officers to avoid leaving
someone restrained on their stomach, as it posed a serious
risk of suffocation, but the trooper left the man hogtied
on his stomach in the back of the vehicle for
almost an hour, with his ankles and wrest handcuffed and
tied together behind his back. In another incident, a LSP
trooper working with a local police department dragged a twenty
five year old woman and a young child from a car.
The woman was having a mental health crisis. Officer stopped
her because she was a reported causing disturbances as multiple officers.
He yelled at the woman and grabbed her in her
screaming child. An LSP trooper tased the woman to make
her let go of her child. The woman fell and
thrashed her legs in the air following the initial taser use,
although she was on the ground, surrounded by at least
eight officers and unarmed. With no warning, an LSP trooper
tased the woman a second time in front of the
crying child. Enough officers were at the scene to control
the woman and take her into custody, but they used
a taser as a first option rather than a last resort,
and failed to attempt any de escalation before using force.
In another incident, an LSP officer pulled a woman who
posed those right face down into the dirt on the
side of the highway because she tried to use her
phone after the trooper stopped her for following the vehicle
in front of her too closely and pulled over and
answer questions. The trooper agreed the woman could use her
cell phone to call her mom to get the vehicle's registration,
but when the woman refused to sign a form consenting
to a search, the trooper apparently changed his mind about
her use of the phone, even though she had been
using it in front of him without an objection. When
the woman tried to call her mom again, the trooper
reached for the woman's phone to stop her from making
the call and dragged her to the ground, twisting her
arm and pushing her onto the ground on the side
of a busy highway so that she had dirt in
her mouth. Then it goes into LSB trooper's use excessive
force when people run, even when they are handcuffed or
suspected of only minor misdemeanor violations. As noted above, When
assessing whether a use of force is reasonable, courts look
at other factors, including whether the person attempted to evade
arrest by fleeing, as well as other factors like severity
of the suspected crime and whether a person posed a threat.
Behavior that appears evasive could of course have any number
of innocent explanations. There are undeniably incidents in which a
person runs for entirely innocent reasons, Thus using force on
people who flee without additional justification can be unreasonable. Yet
troopers reflexively use force and punish people who run away
with little or no additional justification for doing so, then
it gives examples. For instance, in one incident, a trooper
tased a thirty year old man biking through a city
at night without lights. According to the filed report, the
trooper and his partner attempted to stop a cyclist to
explain to him the dangers of operating a bike at
night on a dark roadway. The trooper turned on the
emergency lights, but the man continued to peddle. The trooper
in the passenger seat, rolled his window down and asked
the cyclist to pull the bike over. The cyclist asked
for what, then dropped his bike and ran. The troopers
ran after him, and seconds later they tased him in
the back. In another incident, a Louisiana State Police trooper
tased an unarmed man after pulling him over for not
signaling while changing lanes, not wearing a seat belt, and
having a fake vehicle inspectionion sticker. The man was handcuffed
and shoelas at the time. After pulling up a picture
of the person to whom the car was registered, the
troopers became suspicious as they did not believe the driver
resembled the owner of the vehicle. When asked, the driver
did not produce the driver's license and hesitated when producing
his day to birth. Before he could finish answering the
troopers question, troopers grabbed the man, handcuffed and searched him.
As the troopers were walking the man to the back
of the patrol car, he attempted to run. All three
troopers who were on the scene chased after him. Within
six seconds, a trooper tased the man. Unable to break
his fall, he fell backward onto the pavement, hitting his
head back and cutting his elbow so severely he needed stitches.
Troopers have admitted to using significant force based on flight
alone without additional evidence that the person was a threat.
A trooper explained to a colleague that he did not
know if the pedestrian he had just tasted seven times
had anything to do with our pursuit, but that he
took off running when we went to talk to him.
Then it gets into the poor supervision that contributes to
the lsp's use of excessive force. It says, in one example,
lsp's failure to identify and correct an unreasonable force later
proved deadly. After pulling over an eighteen year old for
a switched temporary tag and speeding, the trooper approached the
car with his gun drawn and ordered him out of
the vehicle. The team complied, got onto his stomach when ordered,
and stretched his arms out to the side as instructed.
The team was holding his cell phone but had no weapons,
even though he was not threatening the trooper and only
he questioned some of the troopers' commands. The trooper reportedly
yelled at the teen to stop looking at him. At
one point, with his gun still drawing, the trooper screamed,
don't look at me, look away. Do it again, motherfucker,
and I'm gonna light you up. The trooper holstered his
gun and drew his taser. He then yelled at the teen,
do you understand that if you look at me again,
I'm gonna take it as a threat and I'm gonna
tase you. The trooper then radio dispatch and said send
me another unit. I'm fixing to tase him because he's
not doing what I'm telling him to do. The teen
asked if he could call his mother and brother. After
not following the trooper's instructions about sliding his cellphone away
several times, the teen scrambled to his feet and started
to dart away. The trooper tased him from behind, striking
his leg. The teen stood up with his hands in
front of him after pulling out the taser probe and said, man,
why did you do that? Sir? Stop? Man stop. After
directing the teenager to get on the ground, the trooper
fired his taser again, striking the teen in the torso.
The teenager's body involuntarily stiffened as he fell flat onto
the pavement. While the teenager screamed in pain on the ground,
the trooper yelled stay on the ground, stop resisting. The
teenager responded, I'm not resisting. Without warning, the trooper tasted
him a third time. The trooper then approached the teen
and sprayed chemical sprayed directly into his face. I would
imagine that's freeze plus p. The team complied with the
trooper's order to put his hands behind his back. A
second trooper he muted his body worn camera after arriving
on the scene, arrived and began kneeling on the eighteen
year old's neck. The first trooper handcuffed the teen, then
started twisting his rust and telling him to stop resisting.
The teen said, my neck, I can't breathe. The original
trooper said, your neck is fine. After the troopers pulled
him to his feet, the team asked to wipe the
chemical spray from his face. The first trooper said, we'll
wash you off when we get to the jail. It
would be more than twenty minutes before the trooper took
the team to that jail. The first trooper then handed
his body worn camera to the second trooper and said,
I don't know if this thing is on met or not.
The second trooper then muted the camera. Later, when driving
the eighteen year old to the local jail, the first
trooper said, I could have just run up there and
beat your ass. It would have been totally justified, and
I didn't. I just wanted to take the time to
give you the chance to do what you're supposed to do.
After the incident, the trooper told staff of the jail,
I hate to bring you one. That's all freyed up
like that. The troopers written use of force report is
riddled with statements that are inconsistent with the camera footage
from the incident. Despite numerous policy violations and the unconstitutional
use of force, there is no evidence of meaningful supervisor
review of the incideut systematic failures and supervision include ineffective
force reviews, deficiencies and policies and training, chronic underreporting of force,
and failure to provide appropriate supervisory tools, and they say
LSP supervisors do not conduct meaningful force reviews. Although LSP
has updated its policies and improved its information systems to
make force reporting more efficient, the lack of meaningful supervisory
force reviews and oversight persisted. Rather than conduct meaningful reviews,
supervisor weight for criminal and administrative investigations to run their
course before taking preventative action. One former high ranking LSP
official described the video of mister Green's death as an
absolute disgust, embarrassment that officers spoke that way and the
excessive force used. It was just an uneasy feeling. Yet,
in response to repeated questions from various legislators, he cannot
recall any recommendations he made or other action taken to
protect the public beyond the start of an investigation. For example,
the troopers were not placed on administrative leave or assigned
additional supervision in the field. A training supervisor involved in
the force review process testified that he learned that one
of the troopers had not been placed on administrative leave
after Green's death when the trooper was involved in another
troubling force incident a year later. So they really hammered
down the fact that even when these incidents happen, it
seems that the supervisors are not doing anything about it.
And of course if you're not doing anything about it,
it's going to continue. Right then. It goes into the
underreporting of forces. Says troopers do not consistently report using
force and supervisors failed to ensure the troopers under the
command report force accurately and completely. Individual US use of
force reports enable supervisory reviews and are the source for
lsp's force statistics, which LSP reviews annually to identify policy, training,
and equipment needs. LSB troopers significantly under report both deadly
and non deadly force. We review video from randomly selected
arrest around the state that did not appear to have
an associated use of Force report. We identified a number
of incidents in which troopers used force and did not
report it at all, or where the incidents did not
appear to be included in the internal force statistics or analysis.
Such under reporting undermines lsp's efforts to identify trends in
training opportunities. We also found instances where all the troopers
filed use of force reports, they did not report all
the force used. For example, a trooper did not report
slamming a man's head into a car window and he
pulled him over four tened window violations, though he did
report using forced ope in the man's mouth and retrieve
a small plastic bag with white powdered residue. According to
the audit trail of the INCR video, the troopers direct
supervisors signed off on the report, and they did not
even review the video of the incident. The supervisors also
did not document any concerns of questions about the force used,
leaving the review section of the use of force report blank.
Lsp's internal documents reflect an awareness within the agency that
troopers under report force. Around early twenty twenty one, after
footage of mister Green's death became public, the then Superintendent
of LSP organized an internal audit team to review body
worn and in camera footage from some troopers and troop
F to identify legal violations. During that review, one member
of the audit team analyzed lsp's use of force by
the race of the subject of the force writing. Part
of the problem, one could argue, is that our personnels
under reports use of force incidents, so they acknowledged they
had a problem right there. Then it goes into troopers
failed to reassess the threats posed by individuals when using
force following vehicle pursuits. The use of force following pursuits
is not uncommon. LSP troopers engaged in nearly seven hundred
vehicle pursuits in twenty twenty two and twenty twenty three,
averaging almost one pursuit per day over the two year period.
At least ten percent of these pursuits resulted in use
of force. Lsp's internal reporting acknowledges that twenty percent of
use of force incidents statewide in twenty twenty two followed
a vehicle pursuit. Lsp's policy gives troopers broad discretion to initiate,
continue in terminate of pursuit. Although policy requires supervisors to
monitor pursuits and call them off if conditions become too dangerous.
One troop captain told us historically it was perceived as
a negative to stop a pursuit. We reviewed a random
sample of incidents in which LLSP troopers reported using force
following pursueds in addition to the incidents we reviewed as
part of our broader use of force sample or review
found that LSP troopers routinely initiate and continue proceeds following
minor traffic offenses, escalating minor infractions into dangerous incidents that
sometimes resulted in unreasonable force. A former LSP leader told
us that troopers tended to be hyped and aggressive during proceeds.
Having been in those situations, he explained, your adrenaline kicks
in and you get a more narrow scope. You're looking
at threat from your lens. We need to find a
way to escalate these situations as opposed to ramping them up.
But our review found that instead of de escalating, troopers
escalate situations by using force, including unreasonable force, after pursuits
without evaluating whether a person who fled poses an additional
or continued risk. And they give an example In one
such incident, troopers and officers from another agency fired sixty
one rounds at a vehicle stuck in the mud after
the driver led police on a twenty eight minute through
two parishes. The pursuit began when an LSP trooper attempted
to stop the vehicle for speeding on the highway. The
driver did not stop, and other officers joined in the chase.
The driver continued fleeing after spike strips deployed by police
impacted the vehicle's two front tires. It was not until
the driver came to the end of a dead end
dirt road and drove into a field that the vehicle stopped.
Troopers and officers arrived and ordered the driver to exit
the vehicle. The driver drove the vehicle backwards and forwards
about five to ten feet in either direction before being
coming stuck in the mud. Troopers asked for permission from
LSP sergeant on the scene to shoot at the vehicle.
The sergeant gave the order to take it out, and
the sergeant, together with two LSP troopers and two local officers,
fired at the vehicle from about fifteen to twenty feet away.
After shooting at the vehicle, fifteen times with his handgun.
One of the LSP troopers said he has no tires,
he ain't going nowhere, and then he continued shooting nineteen
more times with a rifle. After about twelve minutes, the
sergeant approached the vehicle and used his baton to break
the windows to gain entry into the vehicle. The driver
sustained cuts on his arm from broken glass and was
taken into custody. At the time troopers fired at the vehicle,
the purceited ended and the driver was neither flee nor
PoID using a threat that warned use of deadly force
to apprehend him. In addition to leading to a necessary
and sometimes unreasonable use of force, lsp's pursuit practices put
the broader public at risk. In twenty twenty two and
twenty twenty three, more than ten percent of the vehicle
pursuits ended in a crash, on average one every ten days.
These crashes can and do involve innocent bystanders. Then it
goes into lsp's training and tactics encourage aggressive behavior and
escalates encounters, making unnecessary force more likely. In the hundreds
of hours of camera footage that we reviewed, it was
apparent that some troopers perceived everyone to be a threat.
We saw many incidents in which troopers used profane and
unprofessional language, ordering people to get out of the fucking
car or to show their fucking hands. Troopers also threaten people,
saying they would blow your fucking head off or shoot
your fat ass. In one example, after reviewing an incident
in which a trooper screamed at a driver that he
would shoot his fucking ass and then taste him numerous times,
one supervisor noted that he understood the trooper was amped
up and congratulated the trooper on a good job. This
aggressive language, while not itself unconstitutional, escalates situation and often
goes hand in hand with unnecessary force. In the incidents
we reviewed, when troopers use aggressive or profane language in
conjunction with force, it was more likely that at least
one use of force was unreasonable. For example, troopers tased
a man in the back while he was standing with
his hands in the air, and then beat him with
their fists, apparently in retaliation for attempting to evade capture.
Four days before the incident, a female trooper had tried
to arrest a man during a traffic stop, but he
fled and escape. When troopers later went to the man's
home with an arrest warrant, he fled again in his vehicle.
When the vehicle finally stopped in a residential yard, the
man got out of the car and turned to face
it with his hands up. An LSP trooper tased him
in the back. Five troopers, including some in playing clothes,
and pinned him down, tased him and punched him more
than twenty times in his head and body, even though
he was restrained, unarmed, and did not appear to be resisting.
One of the troopers grabbed the man's head and slammed
it into the ground. Another trooper held his head in
the dirt for approximately twenty seconds after many uses of force.
When placing the man in the patrol car, a trooper
told him, you're a piece of shit. You're a first
rate fucking piece of shit. You want to try to
run and fight a fucking girl. And it actually has
pictures from that incident in the report, which I'm gonna
link in the description of this video. Then it goes
into lsp's failure to open investigations when people file complete
for misconduct, says under LSP policing and investigation should be
open when a person files a complaint making an allegation that,
if true, would require disciplinary action in contravention of its
own policy. Many of the complaints do not make it
past the intake stage because LSP decides not to open
an investigation for improper reasons. This means LSP misses opportunities
to intervene in the behavior that harms the public, including
possible excessive force violations. For example, LSP disregarded domestic abuse
allegations when it failed to investigate a complaint from a
trooper's ex wife. The ex wife alleged that her former
spouse was abusing his position in law enforcement by intercepting
her nine one one calls and harassing her in other ways,
conduct that, if true, would clearly warrant discipline, but IA
marked the allegations unfounded in did not open an investigation
into the complaint. The only explanation provided for the decision
was that after a review, it was determined there's insufficient
evidence to initiate an administrative investigation. There was no record
of whether LSP contacted the ex wife, reviewed any supporting materials,
or check nine one one records. Instead of opening an
investigation is required by LSP policy. IA held this woman
to an impermissible standard, discounting her complaint for insufficient evidence
before it could even gather evidence through a formal investigation.
In another case, IA failed to open an investigation after
receiving allegations of troopers showed an alarming lack of courtesy
toward a severely injured driver following a crash that left
the driver with a broken leg, pelvis, and nose and
stuck waists deep in a ditch of water. A bystander
contacted IA to complain about the trooper's response. She alleged
the trooper refused to stop to help the stranded driver,
instead ordering him to come to the shoulder of the
road along with another person. The bystander had to help
the driver out of the car. Despite the complaint, IA
did not want to open an investigation into the trooper's
failure to render aid. In twenty twenty three, another person
filed a complaint against the same trooper, stating she felt
the trooper was discourteous to her during a traffic stop
and treated her differently because she was not white. IA
reviewed body warn camera footage of the stop and Native.
The trooper appeared agitated and yelled at the driver to
get off the damn road. IA documented that the trooper
told the driver, how much more clear do you need
me to be? Would you want me to tell you
in Spanish? Because I can tell you in Spanish. IA
did not open an investigation. Although internal affairs can now
receive complaints online as of June twenty twenty four, LSP
didn't if I have a central repository for incoming complaints.
When a community member calls or walks into a troops station,
each troop decides what to log and document in the records.
This leads to a significant variation across Louisiana State Police.
If after talking to a person, the sergeant fielding the
complaint decides the person has not alleged a policy violation,
they do not document the complaint or send it up
the chain of command. In addition, troops often minimize misconduct
handling serious allegations that they should instead send IA by
the same token. IA sometimes refers cases to the troops
when it should be investigating the misconduct itself. One case
we reviewed exemplified these deficiencies when a sergeant failed to
upload body worn camera footage for nearly six months and
mislabel many of his arrest videos as non events. His
captain is instructed a lieutenant to conduct an investigation into
the sergeant's actions. The lieutenant ultimately found that the sergeant
engaged in unsatisfactory performance and committed bodywarn camera policy violations,
but his interview with the sergeant lasted less than ten
minutes and did not probe the sergeant's explanations for his behaviors,
his understanding of policies, or whether he supervised and reviewed
troopers use of body warn cameras. The sergeant's troop did
not ask IA to investigate him. Instead, his troops leadership
narrowly read his misconduct as procedural violations and accepted his
explanations without taking further action to prevent future violations. This
failure is all more concerning giving the frontline role that
sergeants play in reviewing bodywarn camera footage for potential violations,
including the use of excessive force. In another example, both
IA and the true failed to act despite clear signs
that a trooper had committed significant violations. Over several years,
the troopers lieutenant discovered and documented multiple arrests where the
trooper falsified evidence. For instance, the trooper arrested a driver
for DWI in possession of a firearm in the presence
of a controlled substance based on a breath test that
showed a zero percent blood alcohol content and a glass
bottle the troopers said contained quote unquote meth oil. The bottle,
which turned out to be empty, came back negative for
traces of methamphetamine. The lieutenant observed that the troopers incidents
have grown more serious and that the trooper's actions call
the department's reputation into question. Troop leadership ultimately referred these
incidents to IA, but we found no evidence IA investigated him.
A few years later, the same trooper was disciplined for
four more violations, including mishandling it a DWRS, tampering with
property at a gem while on duty, and making inappropriate
social media posts, including one that mocked a black colleague's promotion.
Because LSP never investigated the trooper for his previous incidents
of falsifying evidence, none of these later decisions to discipline
him made reference to his record of questionable integrity. He
continued to violate LSP policies. His supervisors wrote him up
an additional five times, including for not calling out stops
while on patrol and failing to file a use of
force report in time, but his troop did not formally
open its own investigation or refer these violations to IA. Instead,
the troops simply prohibited him from working overtime assignments. And
it goes on to say even where LSP policy is
clear and requires IA to investigate certain misconducts, such as
racial bias allegation, we found that IA sometimes improperly sends
those complaints to the troops or otherwise fails to meaningly respond.
A black passenger of a car contacted IA wanting to
file a complaint against the trooper, who he believed it
racially profiled everyone in the car when the trooper pulled
them over for not having a visible license plate. An
I investigator contacted the driver, who told them he did
not want to file a complaint, but agreed with the
passenger that they were racially profiled. The driver told IA
and wanted the trooper to receive training that would prevent
a situation like this in the future, rather than opening
an investigation to gather more facts from the passenger, who
did wish to file a complaint, reviewing body worn camera footage,
and interviewing the trooper as required. IA instead referred the
passenger's complaint to the trooper's captain and then close the case.
We found no evidence of the troop opening its investigation
into the allegations, and it goes on to say due
to failures and force reporting in supervision, IA has also
missed critical moments to promptly intervene in other excessive force incidents.
For example, after a trooper repeatedly struck a black man
in the head with a flashlight, the trooper mislabeled the
body worn camera footage as a quote unquote citizen encounter
without reporting the use of force. Later, when the incident
came to light, the trooper lied to the CID by
saying he only struck the driver's hands and nod his head.
I investigated the incident nearly a year and a half
after the assault, only after the driver filed a lawsuit
against LSP, and in the intervening months, the same trooper
assaulted to other black men. Then it gives another example.
It says a trooper engaged in a dangerous high speed
chase of a car that was reported stolen multiple red
lights in a busy downtown area, ramming into the car
to make it stop, and then shooting one of the
passengers who was trying to escape through a window. The
trooper claimed the passenger appointed a gun at him, and
CID cleared him for any criminal liability related to the shooting.
When I reviewed the incident, it failed to identify obvious
policy violations in the trooper's risky vehicle purceipt tactics, such
as running red lights on a crowded street and his
decision to ram the vehicle with his patrol car. Instead,
I wade a two page memorandum summarizing and accepting the
CID's findings. So at the end of this report, y'all,
they always have a conclusion, right, And the conclusion isn't
long on this one. It's literally like one sentence, but
it's it's disturbing. It's kind of telling in it, and
it tells me there's a problem at LSP. And it
says the Department of Justice has a reasonable cause to
believe that LSP engages in a pattern or practice of
using excessive force that deprives people of the rights under
the Constitution. And then it goes into recommending remedial measures.
I'm not going to get into all that. That's something
that Louisiana State Police is going to have to take
a look at and thinks. But two investigations of some
pretty big Louisiana departments over the last month have kind
of broke and this one is making a lot of
headlines here in the state of Louisiana. So this was
kind of an emergency podcast if you will. Like I said,
I had a whole another podcast plan for today, so
you'll get that next week. Thank you so much for listening,
and until next time, I'm Jim Chapman for Bloody Angla,
a podcast two years and making the complete story of
America's bloodiest present peace.
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