Federal prosecutors told family members Tuesday they will not bring charges in the deadly 2019 arrest of Black motorist Ronald Greene, closing the books on a lengthy FBI investigation into the white troopers who stunned, punched and dragged Greene on a roadside and allegations of an attempted cover-up by the Louisiana State Police.
The U.S. Justice Department informed Greene’s family of the decision as officials were also preparing to release findings from a broader civil rights investigation that found a pattern of state troopers using excessive force, according to two officials familiar with the inquiry. The officials spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because they could not publicly discuss details ahead of an announcement expected later in the week.
That “pattern-or-practice” inquiry, launched in 2022, followed an Associated Press investigation that found Greene’s arrest was among at least a dozen cases in which state troopers and their bosses ignored or concealed evidence of beatings, deflected blame and impeded efforts to root out misconduct in the agency. In one case, a white trooper pummeled a Black man 18 times with a flashlight following a traffic stop, leaving him with a broken jaw, broken ribs and a gash to his head.
The AP’s reporting also turned up state police violence against white suspects, including one beaten beyond recognition. Troopers shared the man’s photograph in jeering text messages, saying he “shouldn’t have resisted” and joking that his injuries had been caused by a fall following his 2019 arrest.
Federal prosecutors opened grand jury investigations into some of the cases but closed most of them without charges. In the Greene case, they wavered for years on whether to indict the troopers captured on graphic body-camera video swarming his vehicle following a high-speed chase outside Monroe, Louisiana.
The body-camera footage, withheld by officials for two years but published by AP in 2021, showed troopers swarming Greene even as he appeared to raise his hands, plead for mercy and wail, “I’m your brother! I’m scared! I’m scared!” Troopers repeatedly jolted Greene with stun guns before he could even get out of the car, with one of them wrestling him to the ground, putting him in a chokehold and punching him in the face. Another called him a “stupid motherf——.”
They then ordered a shackled Greene to remain face down on the ground, a prone restraint that experts said could have dangerously restricted Greene’s breathing.
State police initially blamed the 49-year-old’s death on a crash following a high-speed chase over a traffic violation. But that explanation was called into question by photos of Greene’s body on a gurney showing his bruised and battered face, a hospital report noting he had two stun gun prongs in his back and the fact that his SUV had only minor damage. Even the emergency room doctor questioned the troopers’ initial account of a crash, writing in his notes: “Does not add up.”
A reexamined autopsy ordered by the FBI ultimately debunked the crash narrative and listed “prone restraint” among other contributing factors in Greene’s death, including neck compression, physical struggle and cocaine use.
A federal indictment seemed imminent for several years, so much so that federal prosecutors asked the local district attorney to hold off on bringing state charges until the FBI inquiry ran its course. They later reversed course, and, in late 2022, a state grand jury indicted five officers on counts ranging from negligent homicide to malfeasance.
The state case withered away to charges against just two of those officers, one of whom dragged Greene by his ankle shackles and pleaded no contest last year to misdemeanor battery. The lone remaining defendant in the case is scheduled to enter a similar plea this week, concluding the state proceedings.
Perhaps the most significant hurdle to federal charges was the untimely death of Chris Hollingsworth, the trooper who was seen on the video repeatedly bashing Greene in the head with a flashlight and was later recorded by his own body camera calling a fellow officer and saying, “I beat the ever-living f— out of him.” Hollingsworth died in a high-speed, single-vehicle crash in 2020, hours after he was told he would be fired over his actions in Greene’s death.
Another major sticking point was whether prosecutors could prove the troopers acted “willfully” in abusing Greene — a key component of civil rights charges that has complicated such prosecutions around the country. The FBI even enhanced the video of the arrest in an ultimately inconclusive attempt to determine whether he had been pepper-sprayed after he was in custody, focusing on an exchange in which a deputy jeeringly said, “S— hurts, doesn’t it?”
But the federal investigation also included a lengthy focus on the state police brass suspected of obstructing justice by suppressing video evidence, quashing a detective’s recommendation to arrest a trooper and pressuring a state prosecutor.
Still pending is the federal wrongful death lawsuit Greene’s family filed four years ago seeking damages from the officers, who have denied wrongdoing. The civil case was long put on hold as the criminal proceedings played out.
