By Rich McKay
(Reuters) – More video of a fatal 2019 encounter of a Black man with police in Louisiana was released by authorities late Friday, and two state troopers were notified that they will be fired, in the fallout of a lethal traffic stop.
The newly-released bodycam footage shows a high-speed chase and Louisiana state troopers punching motorist Ronald Greene, 49, a Black man, while he was already in handcuffed.
He was also dragged across the ground by shackled feet, and stunned with tasers as he cried, “I’m scared.”
Greene, of West Monroe, Louisiana, led police on a high-speed chase after midnight of May 10, 2019, and crashed his car before being taken into custody, police said. He died in an ambulance on the way to a hospital, police said.
An autopsy showed that Green had alcohol and cocaine in his system, suffered multiple injuries from the crash, as well as injuries from a physical struggle. The manner of death was not listed.
Earlier this week, the case quickly became another national touchstone of alleged police abuse after the unauthorized release of police video by the Associated Press.
In response to that release, Colonel Lamar Davis, the superintendent of the Louisiana State Police held a late night press conference and said the department is releasing all the police bodycam video to add context to what has already been public.
“It’s unfortunate that the path to get here has taken so long,” he said. “But we cannot comment on any conduct of the officers involved, and we cannot offer specifics of the investigation.”
But Davis offered no explanation as to why the case has taken so long to become public. Calls to Davis’ office Saturday were not immediately returned.
The attorney for Davis’s family, Lee Merritt, said that he doesn’t understand why it’s taken two years for the family to get answers.
“The family says none of this lip-service matters until there is criminal accountability in the department,” Merritt said. “What happened here is a crime.”
Of the troopers involved, DaKota DeMoss has been notified that the department intends to fire him and he remains on leave pending another excessive use of force case, police said.
Master Trooper Chris Hollingsworth was also notified of the intent to dismiss him, and he died hours later in a fatal car crash, police said.
Another trooper, Kory York, served a 50-hour suspension and is back on duty.
The case is also the subject of a federal civil rights investigation.
(Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; Editing by Nick Zieminski)
