The Justice Department’s Investigation into the Louisiana State Police

0:15 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. Come here but. By me to die inside these walls, inside the wild.

0:56 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.

2:08 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

3:39 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.

4:20 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.

5:16 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.

6:01 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.

7:25 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.

8:06 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.

8:53 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,

10:24 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.

11:44 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

13:16 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,

14:50 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.

16:14 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

17:45 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

19:17 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.

20:27 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.

21:09 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.

21:51 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

23:25 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.

24:12 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

25:44 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.

26:54 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.

27:44 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.

29:00 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

30:32 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.

31:23 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

32:57 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.

33:51 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.

34:39 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

36:13 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.

37:39 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.

38:32 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.

39:35 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.

40:45 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.

41:41 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.

42:24 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.

43:22 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.

44:49 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.

45:34 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

47:06 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.

48:36 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.

49:17 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

50:49 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.

51:54 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.

53:08 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.

53:56 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.

54:37 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.

55:19 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.

56:22 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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