Lawmakers seek police boss' journals in Ronald Greene probe

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Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

This combination of 2020 and 2017 photos shows Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, left, and Louisiana State Police Supt. Kevin Reeves in Baton Rouge, La. Louisiana lawmakers investigating the deadly 2019 arrest of Black motorist Ronald Greene are preparing to hold Reeves, the former head of the state police, in contempt for refusing to turn over his journals after talks broke down Monday, May 2, 2022 in a dispute over an entry mentioning Gov. Edwards. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

NEW ORLEANS ā€“ Lawmakers investigating the deadly arrest of Black motorist Ronald Greene are preparing to hold the former head of the Louisiana State Police in contempt for refusing to turn over his journals after talks broke down Monday in a dispute over an entry mentioning police brutality and Gov. John Bel Edwards.

The bipartisan committee will move ā€œas soon as possible" to charge Kevin Reeves with contempt and begin legal proceedings to force him to turn over three handwritten journals he kept while leading the embattled agency, state Rep. Tanner Magee, who chairs the panel, told The Associated Press.

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Holding the former head of the state's premier law enforcement agency in contempt would mark a drastic escalation by the committee, which already has elicited explosive testimony from current police officials that they believe Greene's 2019 death was covered up and that his beating by troopers after a high-speed chase amounted to ā€œtorture and murder.ā€

Reeves' lawyer, Lewis Unglesby, said he had prepared photocopies of nearly a dozen journal entries to give to Magee during a meeting but the lawmaker ā€œgot excited and took offā€ without the materials.

ā€œCol. Reeves isnā€™t in contempt of anything,ā€ Unglesby told AP. ā€œHe has done nothing but be cooperative.ā€

The committee formed in February after an AP report that Edwards was informed within hours that troopers arresting Greene had engaged in a ā€œviolent, lengthy struggle.ā€ Yet the Democrat stayed mostly silent on the case for two years as state troopers told Greeneā€™s family and wrote in reports that he died as the result of a car crash after a high-speed chase outside Monroe.

The governor has said that he held off on speaking out about the troopersā€™ actions ā€” even after privately watching graphic body camera footage of the arrest ā€” because of an ongoing federal investigation. He's since called the actions of the troopers involved criminal and racist.

AP last year obtained and published the long-withheld body-camera video that showed what really happened: troopers jolting Greene with stun guns, punching him in the face and dragging him by his ankle shackles as he wailed, ā€œIā€™m your brother! Iā€™m scared! Iā€™m scared!ā€

The eight-member legislative panel for weeks has been interviewing state police and other officials in a bid to reconstruct the agencyā€™s handling of the case. Last week, one senior state police official told lawmakers he was ā€œmystifiedā€ that no troopers have yet faced criminal charges in Greene's death. Another ranking official offered an extraordinary apology to Greeneā€™s family, describing the 49-year-old's fatal arrest as ā€œa complete disregard for the sanctity of human life.ā€

Lawmakers have said they intend to investigate what Edwards knew and when he knew it, but no one on his staff has yet been called to testify.

Reeves, who described Greeneā€™s death as ā€œawful but lawfulā€ and stepped down in late 2020 amid criticism, has sought to downplay his own involvement in the case. He told lawmakers in March that he had a follow-up conversation with Edwards about Greeneā€™s death ā€” concerning the initial coronerā€™s findings ā€” but said the two did not discuss the case ā€œin any depthā€ until late 2020, when word of Greeneā€™s mistreatment and a federal civil rights investigation surfaced in media accounts.

In his testimony, Reeves also revealed he kept a journal with contemporaneous notes even after retiring as superintendent but would not commit to providing them to the committee.

ā€œMy journal is my personal business,ā€ he said, ā€œand Iā€™m not here to discuss it.ā€

Lawmakers issued a subpoena for the journals in April, days after Reevesā€™ lawyer declined by letter to turn them over voluntarily, citing privacy and security concerns.

Magee, a Republican, said he sat down at Unglesby's office Monday to discuss which portions of the ā€œthree small, moleskin journalsā€ were relevant to the committeeā€™s inquiry. During the meeting, the lawyer was willing to provide entries that mentioned Greene by name but resisted even showing Magee other portions without justification, the lawmaker said.

Talks broke down over a June 17, 2020, entry that Magee said mentioned the governor by name along with notes about how to handle body camera footage and police brutality in the future.

Magee said he thought the entry ā€” which was made around the time protests over George Floydā€™s killing were erupting across the country ā€” could be related to Greeneā€™s death. But he said Unglesby denied this and refused to turn it over, describing it as ā€œjust a random discussion on police brutality.ā€

ā€œSo I told him weā€™re going to proceed with going through with contempt charges,ā€ Magee said.

Unglesby said he later emailed and faxed the entries he initially prepared for release to Magee, but withheld certain entries that involve ā€œnames and eventsā€ not related to the scope of the committee. He declined to release the materials to AP.

A spokesperson for the governor said Edwards likely saw Reeves on June 17, 2020, but they did not discuss Greene. She noted that a legislative committee had a hearing on policing issues on that date and said the governor only learned of the ā€œserious allegations surrounding Mr. Greeneā€™s death in September 2020.ā€

Magee said the way Reeves journal was written ā€” ā€œlike a to-do listā€ ā€” made it hard to say what the entries mean and that he only saw a fraction of them.

ā€œI think itā€™s premature to make any accusations,ā€ he said. "But I think itā€™s important we get the documents to put it into its proper context.

___

Bleiberg reported from Dallas.


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