The death of Ronald Greene in 2019 was initially attributed to a car accident before body camera footage showed white officers dragging, beating, and stunning the Black motorist. This week, a Louisiana judge dismissed obstruction of justice charges against two of the five law enforcement officers who were indicted in December.
For their roles in Greene’s arrest, five law enforcement officers were charged. These officers included Kory York, who is accused of negligent homicide and 10 counts of misconduct in office; John Clary, who is accused of obstruction of justice and misconduct in office; Dakota DeMoss, who is accused of obstruction of justice; Christopher Harpin, who is accused of misconduct in office on three counts; and John Peters, who is accused of obstruction of justice.
DeMoss, a trooper who responded to the collision and disabled the audio on his body camera for the majority of Greene’s arrest, and Peters, a troop commander at the time of the incident who is accused of instructing detectives to withhold evidence in Greene’s case, were both cleared of obstruction charges by Judge Thomas Rogers.
According to Rogers, neither of the officers’ actions constituted “tampering” as defined by the state.
According to Peters, he is anticipating “the entire truth finally being placed on the table.”
Clary, however, was nonetheless charged with obstruction of justice since it was alleged that he had withheld the 30-minute video taken by his body camera, which is the only one to capture the moment Greene complained beneath the weight of two troopers before jerking and becoming limp.
The judge did not address York’s accusation of homicide, according to the AP, and allowed other felony charges to stand.
Graphic video shows York dragging Greene by the ankle shackles and abandoning him face down in the ground for more than nine minutes.
Rogers warned the prosecution to fix “defects” in the indictment’s wording or risk having more felony charges against York and two other cops dismissed.
“It was clear they didn’t do their homework,” Greene’s mother, Mona Hardin, told the AP, of prosecutors led by District Attorney John Belton. “What we’re seeing is a whittling away of Ronnie’s case. It’s a debacle.”
It was not known if the prosecution intended to appeal the decisions.
On May 10, 2019, just after midnight, Greene, 49, led police on a high-speed pursuit south of the Arkansas state line.
Seconds before the chase ended, DeMoss warned over the radio, “We got to do something. He’s going to kill somebody.”
In the 46-minute footage, troopers rush Greene’s SUV following the collision and order him to raise his hands.
Greene appeared to raise his hands, and the troopers repeatedly shocked him with a stun gun while he yelled, “I’m your brother! I’m afraid! I’m terrified.
A trooper was observed placing Greene in a chokehold as he exited the car, hitting him in the face, and wrestling him to the ground. An other trooper can be heard calling Greene a “stupid motherf- – – -.”
Following the shackling of Greene’s legs and the cuffing of his hands behind him, York is supposedly seen pulling him facedown. The troopers allegedly cleaned their hands of blood while leaving the guy facedown for nine minutes.
In a different video obtained by the AP, Master Trooper Chris Hollingsworth, who later perished in a single-car accident after learning that he would be fired for the arrest, is said to have admitted to pounding Greene “ever-living f— out.”
“Choked him and everything else trying to get him under control,” he is allegedly heard saying. “He was spitting blood everywhere, and all of a sudden he just went limp.”
According to the family’s lawsuit, officers left Greene “beaten, bloodied, and in cardiac arrest” before lying about what caused his demise.
The Louisiana State Police was under investigation by the Department of Justice in June 2022 because it was reportedly not doing enough to stop police brutality against predominantly Black men.
