The federal “motive or practice” investigation released Thursday followed an Associated Press investigation that found Green was among at least a dozen cases in the past decade in which state police or their bosses ignored or withheld evidence of beatings. responsibility and obstructed efforts to eliminate the misconduct. Dozens of current and former soldiers have said the beatings were met with a culture of impunity, nepotism and, in some cases, pure racism. “We find important justification to open this investigation now. “… Ministry of Justice. He added that there were also reports of soldiers targeting black residents for enforcing traffic and using “racial slander and racist derogatory terms”. The federal investigation, the first such crackdown on a government law enforcement agency in more than two decades, comes more than three years after white soldiers were caught on a body video camera hitting, stunning and dragging Green to a rural edge of the road. near Monroe. . Despite lengthy, ongoing federal and state criminal investigations into the deaths of soldiers initially blamed for a car accident, no one has been charged. The AP reports that soldiers have become accustomed to turning off or turning off body cameras during pursuits. When the video is recorded, the agency usually refuses to publish it. And a recently retired supervisor overseeing a particularly violent troop of soldiers told internal investigators last year that it was “common practice” to seal reports of violence by officers without ever looking at the body camera video. In some cases, soldiers avoided the use of force, such as blows to the head from official reports, and in others, soldiers tried to justify their actions by claiming that the suspects were violent, resisting, or escaping, all of which were refuted by video. “This systemic misconduct has been blessed by top Louisiana State Police officials,” said Alanah Odoms, executive director of the Louisiana ACLU. He described a “culture of violence, terror and discrimination” within the ministry, calling Green’s death “the tip of the iceberg”. Clark said research into the “pattern or practice” policy aims to lead to the necessary reforms, if necessary with lawsuits to enforce a federal consent order. He added that Gov. John Bell Edwards and Louisiana State Police Inspector Lamar Davis have pledged to work together. Davis, in an internal email received by the AP, told the soldiers to “keep their heads up” and embrace federal control. “We have nothing to hide and we can only benefit from learning,” he wrote. Edwards issued a statement Thursday welcoming the inquiry. “It’s deeply troubling that there are allegations of systemic misconduct that would justify such an investigation,” he said. their. to public security officers have been rehabilitated. “ Black leaders have been urging the Justice Department for months to launch a wider investigation into possible racist allegations by the state’s overwhelmingly white police force, similar to other investigations launched last year in Minneapolis, Louisville and Phoenix. According to his own estimate, 67% of the state police’s use of force in recent years was against blacks, who make up 33% of the state’s population. The action comes as Edwards prepares to testify before a bipartisan committee of state lawmakers investigating Green’s death. The AP reported last month that the Democratic governor and his lawyers watched private videos showing Green taking his last breaths during his deadly arrest – footage that reached prosecutors almost two years after Green’s death on May 10, 2019 . Federal prosecutors are also investigating whether police obstructed justice to protect soldiers in the Greene case – and whether they tried to hide evidence that soldiers beat other black motorists. The state police chief at the time of Green’s arrest, Kevin Reeves, denied that the death had been covered up, but current governors told lawmakers investigating the state’s response that it was. The force’s own expert on the use of force called what the soldiers did to Green “torture and murder.” The AP also found that a former soldier involved in three different beatings, Jacob Brown, counted 23 uses of force dating back to 2015, 19 of which involved blacks. In a case that led to federal charges, Brown was seen on video with a camera hitting Aaron Larry Bowman 18 times with a flashlight after lawmakers shot him in a traffic violation in 2019. State police investigated the attack only 536 days later, and did so only after a lawsuit from Bowman, who was left with a head injury and a broken jaw, ribs and wrist. “After all!!!” Bowman’s lawyer, Donecia Banks-Miley, said in a text message as soon as she heard the investigation into the plan or practice. “We still need transparency and accountability to help alleviate the pain that continues to occur with LSPs and other law enforcement agencies.”
Bleiberg reported from Uvalde, Texas.
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