The U.S. Justice Department is opening a “pattern-or-practice” investigation into the Louisiana State Police amid mounting evidence that the agency has looked the other way in the face of beatings of mostly Black men, including the deadly 2019 arrest of Ronald Greene.
Officials familiar with the matter told The Associated Press the announcement will be made later Thursday in Baton Rouge. The inquiry comes more than three years after white troopers were captured on long-withheld body camera video beating, stunning and dragging Greene on a rural roadside near Monroe.
Shortly after he died following a high-speed chase with police in Louisiana in 2019, state troopers initially told Greene's family that he died in a car crash.
Greene died on May 10, 2019, according to the Associated Press. KNOE-TV in Monroe, Louisiana, reports that Greene led police on a chase that began in Ouachita Parish.
The ACLU of Louisiana said in a statement that Greene had been "tortured to death by officers who denied him, life-saving aide, for more than nine minutes."
"What we are witnessing on this video is a brutal killing – a killing that was committed by cops but also condoned by our laws, perpetuated by white supremacy, and encouraged by a culture of impunity and violence," the statement read.
No one has been charged in the case.