(Jan. 23)  Gov. Jeff Landry and Attorney General Liz Murrill risk politicizing a Justice Department report that they wrongly accuse of being a politicized hit job. The report on the Louisiana State Police, released Jan. 16, actually is thoughtful and constructive. State officials should implement most of its recommendations.

The joint report by the department’s civil rights division and by U.S. Attorneys’ offices in all three Louisiana districts was catalyzed by the well-publicized 2019 tragedy near Monroe involving 49-year-old Ronald Greene, who died in police custody after being brutalized by multiple troopers. Whether technically criminal or not, the treatment of Greene was so appalling that any human with a shred of decency would denounce it.

[kpolls]

The Justice Department probe in response to the Greene incident found no clear pattern of “racially discriminatory policing,” but it did find “reasonable cause to believe that the Louisiana State Police engage in a statewide pattern or practice of using excessive force, which violates the Fourth Amendment.” Yet rather than propose some draconian federal crackdown on the Louisiana State Police, the report instead made 17 recommendations for the LSP to improve itself, while the feds took pains to “recognize that most LSP troopers work hard to keep the public safe” and commended the LSP for making several “much-needed reforms … [and] improvements.”

The report’s tone is helpful throughout, and its case-by-case specificity is admirable. The report repeatedly describes in stark detail incidents in which officers used obviously excessive force against unarmed and even cooperative suspects, often without penalty to the officers or remotely adequate review. Some of the incidents are downright sickening.

One example involved a 25-year-old woman having a mental health crisis while a small child was in her car…. In response to these abuses, many of which came earlier than the current gubernatorial regime, the report offers a series of commonsense correctives, most of which would be not resented but actually welcomed by good officers. [The full column is at this link.]

 

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