Louisiana State Troopers Seem to Love Beating Black Men

A federal jury in Louisiana on Wednesday acquitted a white state trooper charged with violating the civil rights of a Black motorist.

Graphic body camera video kept secret for more than two years shows a Louisiana State Police trooper pummeling a Black motorist 18 times with a flashlight — an attack the trooper defended as "pain compliance."

"I'm not resisting! I'm not resisting!" Aaron Larry Bowman can be heard screaming between blows on the footage obtained by The Associated Press. The May 2019 beating following a traffic stop left him with a broken jaw, three broken ribs, a broken wrist and a gash to his head that required six staples to close.

The acquittal comes as federal prosecutors are still scrutinizing other Louisiana state troopers caught on body-camera video punching, stunning and dragging another Black motorist, Ronald Greene, before he died in their custody on a rural roadside.

On the night that Bowman was pulled over for “improper lane usage,” Brown came upon the scene after deputies had forcibly removed Bowman from his vehicle and taken him to the ground in the driveaway of his Monroe home. Video and police records show he beat Bowman 18 times with a flashlight in 24 seconds.

“I’m not resisting! I’m not resisting!” Bowman can be heard screaming between blows.

Brown, 31, failed to report his use of force and mislabeled his body-camera footage in what investigators described in internal records as “an intentional attempt to hide the video.” State police didn’t investigate the attack until 536 days later, and only did so after a lawsuit from Bowman.

Brown was involved in 23 use-of-force incidents between 2015 and his 2021 resignation — 19 of which targeted Black people. Brown still faces state charges in the violent arrest of yet another Black motorist, a case in which he boasted in a group chat with other troopers that “it warms my heart knowing we could educate that young man.”

Brown was one of three Louisiana State Police troopers accused of beating a Black motorist, hoisting him to his feet by his hair braids and bragging in text messages that the “whoopin’” would give him “nightmares for a long time.”

Brown is the son of Bob Brown, a longtime trooper who oversaw statewide criminal investigations and, before retiring, was the agency’s chief of staff. The elder Brown rose to the agency’s second in command despite being reprimanded years earlier for calling Black colleagues the n-word and hanging a Confederate flag in his office.

https://www.kob.com/news/us-and-wor...per-caught-on-camera-pummeling-black-motorist/

https://www.npr.org/2021/08/25/1030...-motorist-18-times-flashlight-pain-compliance

https://apnews.com/article/death-of-ronald-greene-louisiana-arrests-dea5c02e80db1cb450ade1baa6708299

 

The abuse history there is horrific. The tweets by the police are sickening. It's hard to deny the racial motivation behind the abuse.

 

Yeah, it probably has to do with the legalities of civil rights charges vs abuse. The sad part is that trooper has a dark history of abuse, and tried to cover this up. The Dept seems dirty and racist as hell, and their history of abuse is disgusting. I hope he gets charged in his next trial, where they killed the guy.