‘I’M SCARED’

5 Cops Charged for Fatally Beating Black Man on Louisiana Roadside

Body camera footage of the 2019 incident, which showed law enforcement dragging and beating Greene, destroyed an earlier claim that he’d died in a car crash.

Five police officers in Louisiana will face charges related to the 2019 death of Ronald Greene, an unarmed Black man who was stunned, punched, and choked during a roadside arrest, a grand jury in Union Parish said Thursday. The state charges, which run the gamut from negligent homicide to malfeasance, follow the release of body camera footage suppressed by local authorities for two years—until the Associated Press was finally able to publish a section of the video in May 2021. In the footage, Greene can be seen being dragged face-down while handcuffed and shackled, at one point crying out, “I’m scared!” Of the indicted group, which includes four state troopers and a parish sheriff’s deputy, Master Trooper Kory York was hit with the most severe charges: negligent homicide and ten counts of malfeasance in office. The other four officers are charged with malfeasance and obstruction of justice, according to the AP. “We’re all excited for the indictments, but are they actually going to pay for it?” asked Mona Hardin, Greene’s mother. “As happy as we are, we want something to stick.”