Governor kept mum, Edwards knew Black man died in police custody, stayed silent

Published 8:45 pm Sunday, January 30, 2022

BATON ROUGE — Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat in a deep-red state, was immersed in a difficult re-election campaign when he received a text message from the head of the state police: Troopers had engaged in “a violent, lengthy struggle” with a Black motorist, ending with the man’s death.

Edwards was notified of the circumstances of Ronald Greene’s death within hours of his May 2019 arrest, according to text messages The Associated Press obtained through a public records request. Yet the governor kept quiet as police told a much different story to the victim’s family and in official reports: that Greene died from a crash following a high-speed chase.

For two years, Edwards remained publicly tight-lipped about the contradictory accounts and possible cover-up until the AP obtained and published long-withheld body-camera footage showing what really happened: white troopers jolting Greene with stun guns, punching him in the face and dragging him by his ankle shackles as he pleaded for mercy and wailed, “I’m your brother! I’m scared! I’m scared!”

The governor has rebuffed repeated interview requests and his spokesperson would not say what steps, if any, Edwards took in the immediate aftermath of Greene’s death. “The governor does not direct disciplinary or criminal investigations,” said spokesperson Christina Stephens, “nor would it be appropriate for him to do so.”

What the governor knew, when he knew it and what he did have become questions in a federal civil rights investigation of the deadly encounter and whether police brass obstructed justice to protect the troopers who arrested Greene.

“The question is: When did he find out the truth?” said Sen. Cleo Fields, a Baton Rouge Democrat who is vice-chair of a legislative committee created last year to dig into complaints of excessive force by state police.

The FBI has questioned people in recent months about Edwards’ awareness of various aspects of the case, according to law enforcement officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the probe. Investigators have focused in part on an influential lawmaker saying the governor downplayed the need for a legislative inquiry.

The governor’s spokesperson said he is not under investigation and neither is any member of his staff.

Edwards kept quiet about the Greene case through his re-election campaign in 2019 and through a summer of protests in 2020 over racial injustice in the wake of George Floyd’s killing. Even after Greene’s family filed a wrongful-death lawsuit that brought attention to the case in late 2020, Edwards declined to characterize the actions of the troopers and refused calls to release their body-camera video, citing his concern for not interfering with the federal investigation.

But when the AP obtained and published the long-withheld footage of the encounter that left Greene bloody, motionless and limp on a dark road near Monroe, Edwards finally spoke out.

Edwards condemned the troopers, calling their actions “deeply unprofessional and incredibly disturbing.”

“I am disappointed in them and in any officer who stood by and did not intervene,” the governor said in a statement.