Louisiana State Police via AP
- A new report from the AP said that the ranking officer present when Ronald Greene was killed lied about his body camera footage.
- The report added that for two years, he claimed he had no footage of the incident.
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The ranking Louisiana State Police officer at the scene of Ronald Greene's deadly arrest in 2019 appeared to try and cover up the incident, denying the existence of his body camera footage from the night for two years, according to a new report from the Associated Press.
AP reviewed state police documents, which allegedly showed that Lt. John Clary told internal investigators that he did not possess body camera footage of the event and falsely claimed Greene was a threat when officers handcuffed him.
"Upon continued administrative review of the incident, personnel discovered three videos utilized in the internal affairs investigation were not part of the evidence submitted to District Attorney Belton with the original case report," Captain Nick Manale, from Louisiana State Police, told Insider in a statement. "
"This evidence was used in the disciplinary procedures for Trooper York and previously had been submitted to federal investigators," Manale said. "It was again provided to federal investigators and to the District Attorney's Office as a supplemental report. Internal reviews are currently ongoing to determine why those videos were not identified during the original criminal investigation."
The AP published 46 minutes of body camera footage from the officers who arrested Greene, showing gruesome scenes of the officers tasing, hitting, and dragging Greene, as he repeatedly says, "I'm sorry," and says he was "scared."
Police initially said that Greene died in a car crash; they later said he died on the way to the hospital.
After the AP published that footage, the Louisiana State Police released nine body camera videos on Friday night.
Greene's death is now the subject of a federal civil rights investigation.
Louisiana officials did not act to investigate the officers for two years, and police only opened an investigation 474 days after Greene died in custody.
"Louisiana State Police had every intention, as we do for all public records request to release all required evidence and information, as appropriate, at the right time," Superintendent Col. Lamar Davis said last week. "And any suggestion otherwise is categorically false."
Gov. John Bel Edwards of Louisiana said in a statement that he "strongly supported" the release of all of the footage, adding that he found the footage "disturbing" and "difficult to watch."