Cop in Ronald Greene's deadly arrest made multiple false statements to investigators, documents show

The ranking Louisiana State Police officer at the scene of the deadly arrest of Ronald Greene in 2019 falsely told internal investigators that Greene, a Black man, was still a threat to flee after he was shackled, according to new state police documents obtained by The Associated Press. The documents also show the officer denied the existence of his own body camera video for nearly two years until it emerged just last month.

The documents show numerous inconsistencies between Lieutenant John Clary's statements to detectives and the body camera footage he denied having. They add to growing evidence of obfuscation in Greene's death, which the White troopers initially blamed on a car crash at the end of a high-speed chase and is now the subject of a federal civil rights investigation. The highly secretive case has drawn national attention since last week, when the AP began publishing graphic body camera videos that showed troopers repeatedly jolting Greene with stun guns, putting him in a chokehold, punching him and dragging him by his ankle shackles. And like George Floyd's death a year ago, it once again highlighted the importance of video as key evidence in police misconduct cases.