Governor saw deadly arrest video months before prosecutors

Louisiana's capital city is Baton Rouge. In October 2020, Louisiana's governor and his top lawyers gathered in a state police conference room to prepare for the aftermath of a deadly case closer to home.

There, they watched a crucial body-camera video of the Black driver's violent arrest that showed a bruised and bloody Greene going limp and drawing his final breaths, footage that prosecutors, detectives and medical examiners wouldn't even know existed for.

The governor has distanced himself from the allegations of a cover-up in the case, but an Associated Press investigation found that wasn't the case with the 30-minute video he watched. The state police and his staff did not act quickly to get the footage to those with the power to charge the white troopers.

The video that showed critical moments and audio that was not included in other footage would not reach prosecutors until nearly two years after the death. After three years, no one has been criminally charged.

The governor's appearance is horrible. The president of the Metropolitan Crime Commission, a New Orleans-based watchdog group, said that it makes him responsible in delaying justice.

It takes good men to do nothing for evil to prevail.

Chris Hollingsworth swore an oath and told investigators about the night he bashed Ronald Greene in the head, days before his own death. (March 30)

The governor's administration has been under scrutiny for months because of what he knew and did about the death of a person in custody. A bipartisan legislative committee probing the case and a possible cover-up is expected to summonEdwards and his staff within weeks.

Attorneys say there was no way for the governor to know that the video he watched had not been turned over to prosecutors.

The governor's attorneys didn't mention seeing the video in a meeting with state prosecutors, who wouldn't receive the footage until six months later. The head of the state police told the AP that the video was turned over to federal authorities around the same time.

The lawyer from a long line of Louisiana sheriffs did not make himself available for an interview. Matthew Block told the AP that it was not acceptable for evidence to be given to the governor and not the officials investigating the case. The governor's staff said that the state police actually had the video.

The district attorney didn't have a piece of evidence, so I can't go back and fix it. Of course.

The 30-minute body-camera footage from John Clary, the highest-ranking trooper to respond to the arrest, is at issue. It is one of two videos of the incident, and captured events not seen on the 46-minute clip from Trooper Dakota DeMoss that shows troopers swarming Greene's car after a high-speed chase, repeatedly zaping him with stun guns, beating him in the head and dragging him. In the frantic scene, Greene is barely resisting, pleading for mercy and wailing. I'm scared! I'm scared!

Clary's video is the only footage that shows the moment a handcuffed, bloody Greene moans under the weight of two troopers, twitches and then goes still. It also shows troopers ordering the heavyset, 49-year-old to remain face down on the ground with his hands and feet restrained for more than nine minutes, a tactic use-of-force experts criticized as dangerous and likely to have restricted his breathing.

Clary's video has sound all the way through, picking up a trooper ordering Greene to lay on his belly.

The use-of-force expert for the state police highlighted the importance of the Clary footage during his testimony.

The same thing happened in the George when they pressed on his back. The moment of his death was said by a pulmonologist. The same thing happened with Ronald.

State police internal affairs officers opened a probe after Clary's video reached them, and later showed it to the governor. It was not known to detectives working the criminal case and missing from the initial investigative case file. Its absence has become a focal point in the federal probe, which is looking at the actions of the troopers and whether state police brass obstructed justice to protect them.

Clary gave investigators a thumb drive of other troopers' body-camera videos after he lied about not having any footage of his own.

State police say Clary uploaded his body-camera footage to an online evidence storage system and that the then-head of the agency defended his handling of the case.

I don't think there was a cover-up by the state police of this matter.

The detectives were locked out of the video storage system at the time and had to rely on Clary to provide the footage.

Albert Paxton, the lead detective on the case, said he didn't know the video existed until April 2021, when Davis, the use-of-force expert, made a passing.

Clary's internal affairs investigation into whether or not the footage was purposely kept secret was not conclusive. Clary, who didn't respond to requests for comment, remained in the state police.

In early October 2020, days after the AP published audio of Trooper Chris Hollingsworth boasting that he had beat the ever-living f--- out of his co-workers, Block and Tina Vanichchagorn went to a state police building.

The governor's lawyers flew with the police brass 200 miles north to discuss the videos with the district attorney.

The October 13 meeting was supposed to be used to plan a closed-door event the next day in which the family of the man who was arrested would meet the governor. Although the meeting was about showing video of the arrest, it never came to light that the governor's lawyers and police commanders were aware of the footage.

He only knew at the time of the DeMoss video that it didn't come up.

Block said they didn't go through what happened on the videos.

The agreement fell apart over what happened the next day.

Several people who attended the viewing in Baton Rouge affirmed that the Clary video was not shown to the family after meeting the candidate. The Clary video was shown by the state police and the governor's office.

The department has no proof of what was shown to the family.

When the Greene family asked if there was a Clary video, they were told it was not worth anything.

The fact is we never saw it.

The records show that, at the request of federal prosecutors, the Greene arrest videos were not made public. The DeMoss and Clary videos were published by the AP in May of 2021.

An AP investigation found that over the past decade, at least a dozen cases in which state police troopers or their bosses ignored or concealed evidence of beatings, impeded efforts to root out wrongdoing. Dozens of current and former troopers said the beatings were countenanced by a culture of impunity and racism.

Within hours, he received a text message from a friend telling him that troopers engaged in a violent struggle with a black driver and he died. The governor kept quiet about the case for two years as police continued to push the narrative that he died in a crash.

The FBI sent a sweeping subpoena for evidence to state police after the wrongful-death lawsuit was filed by the family of the man who died.

The governor broke his silence after the videos were published. As his role in the case has come under scrutiny, he has gone further to describe them as racist while denying he interfered with or delayed investigations.

The Clary video was not given to prosecutors until the spring of 2021, according to the governor's lawyers. The evidence that was turned over to prosecutors was proof that there was no cover-up.

The evidence of what happened that night was presented to prosecutors before my election, according to a news conference.

That is not part of a cover-up.

There is a

Contact the global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org.