House speaker announces panel to investigate Ronald Greene death

BATON ROUGE–House Speaker Clay Schexnayder on Thursday announced a bipartisan legislative investigation into the fatal 2019 arrest of Black motorist Ronald Greene, declaring “no crime should be ignored, no cover-up will be tolerated.”

Schexnayder said he is launching the select committee because of new information unearthed in an Associated Press article that suggested that Gov. John Bel Edwards knew more about the incident than he had acknowledged as well as what Edwards said in a news conference addressing the allegation.

“These events have raised serious questions regarding who knew what and when,” Schexnayder said in a statement. “The actions taken that night and the cryptic decisions and statements made every step of the way since then have eroded public trust. That trust can only be regained with a transparent and robust search for the whole truth in this matter.”

The announcement follows a public battle of truths. Schexnayder maintains that Edwards told him in a meeting last summer that Greene had died in a car wreck, while Edwards says he said no such thing.

Senate President Page Cortez, R-Lafayette, who also was in that meeting with the governor and the speaker, does not remember Edwards saying Greene died in a wreck. But he said he came away from the meeting with the understanding that no investigation was necessary.

At the news conference, Edwards called a potential investigation a “witch hunt with no basis in fact.”

Greene, a 49-year-old Monroe man, died after a high-speed car chase with State Police officers. Bodycam videotapes subsequently revealed that the troopers beat him severely after taking him into custody.

The bipartisan committee will be chaired by Rep. Tanner Magee, R-Houma and the second ranking Republican in the House. It will include several Democrats who have been active in the fight against police brutality.

Among those Democrats, Rep. Edmond Jordan of Baton Rouge, was one of the attorneys for the family of Alton Sterling, a Black man killed by Baton Rouge police in 2016.

Jordan sponsored a bill in 2021 that would have limited a qualified-immunity law that protects law-enforcement officers who use excessive force. The House passed the bill, but it failed in a Senate judiciary committee.

Rep. C. Denise Marcelle of Baton Rouge and another Democrat who will serve on the panel reviewing the Greene case, was a protester following the police shooting of Sterling.

The committee also includes Rep. Tony Bacala, R-Prairieville, a retired law enforcement officer. Bacala served on a task force with Jordan that proposed a number of changes in policing in Louisiana after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. But Bacala voted against Jordan’s qualified immunity bill.

The other members of the committee are Republican representatives Richard Nelson of Mandeville and Debbie Villio of Kenner and Democratic representatives Jason Hughes and Mandie Landry, both of New Orleans.

“The members of this select committee understand the seriousness of this issue and hope to bring some closure to the family and public at large in this matter,” Magee said in the statement.

Schexnayder said that the committee will hold its first meeting shortly after the redistricting special session ends. He said witnesses will be announced shortly.

“The truth must come out to show what happened in this case and in the events that followed,” Schexnayder said in the statement. “The public demands it and the family deserves it. No crime should be ignored, no cover-up will be tolerated.”