BATON ROUGE, La. (KLFY) — Governor John Bel Edwards’s office released a statement in response to a report released by the Associated Press (AP) that states Edwards kept quiet about the death of Ronald Greene, a black man who died in police custody in 2019.
The report says that Edwards was aware of the circumstances of Greene’s death within hours of it happening, but he kept quiet as police told a different story to Greene’s family and in official reports.
The following statement was issued by Edwards’s Deputy Chief of Staff, Communications on Monday in response to the AP report:
The Governor first learned of the serious allegations against Louisiana State Police surrounding the arrest and death of Mr. Ronald Greene in September 2020. He had previously been notified of the arrest and death of an unnamed individual in May of 2019 by then LSP Superintendent Col. Kevin Reeves. That text message was provided to the Associated Press by the Governor’s office and is attached to this email.
It is standard practice for the head of LSP to notify the Governor of incidents where a person dies in custody. He did not see, nor was he aware of, the videos of the arrest until much later in October of 2020. From the moment the Governor learned of the allegations and saw the videos, he has consistently said that the actions of the officers in the videos were disturbing and unacceptable and that the matter should be fully investigated by federal and state authorities.
Neither the Governor nor anyone on the Governor’s staff has ever intervened or interfered in any criminal investigation, including the investigation into Mr. Greene’s death.
Christina Stephens, Deputy Chief of Staff, Communications
A screenshot of the aforementioned messages was provided by the Governor’s Office and is pictured below:
