The U.S. Justice Department is opening a sweeping civil rights investigation into the Louisiana State Police amid mounting evidence that the agency has a pattern of looking the other way in the face of beatings of mostly Black men.
The U.S.
In some cases, troopers omitted uses of force such as blows to the head from official reports, and in others troopers sought to justify their actions by claiming suspects were violent, resisting or escaping, all of which were contradicted by video footage. Black leaders have been urging the Justice Department for months to launch a broader investigation into potential racial profiling by the overwhelmingly white state police, similar to other probes opened over the past year in Minneapolis, Louisville and Phoenix.
Federal prosecutors also are still investigating whether police brass obstructed justice to protect troopers in the Greene case — and whether they sought to conceal evidence of troopers beating other Black motorists.