BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) – The mother of Ronald Greene was one of many to testify Monday before the second meeting of the Louisiana State Senate Select Committee on State Police Oversight.
Louisiana State Police Colonel Lamar Davis is taking part in a follow-up discussion one week after the 26th Superintendent of the Louisiana State Police committed to change amid excessive force allegations.
State Senator Gerald Boudreaux requested that the committee hears about the LSP Force investigations Unit (FIU).
Lieutenant Colonel (LTC) Kenny L. VanBuren and Major Jason Turner of the Louisiana State Police came up and sat next to Louisiana State Police Colonel Lamar Davis.
Lieutenant Colonel VanBuren spoke in front of the committee about use of force investigations.
LTC VanBuren was the commander of the Ronald Greene investigation in 2019.
LSP has created a specialized unit that will investigate all troopers involved in the use of force cases.
The goal is to let the public know about the facts of a case, according to Lieutenant Colonel VanBuren.
The creation of this unit was made after the evaluation of policies and procedures from over 20 agencies throughout the country.
The model for the Louisiana State Police was based on those best practices.
Major Jason Turner then began a presentation to the committee.
Turner is the Command Inspector of the LSP Criminal Investigations Division.
Major Turner spoke about the 15 person unit made up of detectives who will investigate for LSP and report to Louisiana State Police Colonel Lamar Davis.
That unit is known as the Force Investigative Unit or FIU.
The Force Investigative Unit is going to look into among other things, chokeholds, strikes to the head, ramming, the use of retaliatory force, and tasers.
In an effort to be transparent, LSP is going to hold Critical Incident Briefings.
Louisiana State Police is going to create and release Critical Incident Videos within 21 days of an incident.
These videos will look a lot like what the Los Angeles Police Department produces for the public.
Louisiana State Police Colonel Lamar Davis was asked by State Sen. Katrina Jackson why chokeholds were still being used by members of the force.
LSP Colonel Davis stated that deputies need to be able to defend themselves. Davis says lethal force must be in play in order to use that level of force.
Four former and current LSP employees were requested to come in front of the committee.
Three of them declined to attend the Senate Select Committee meeting.
Louisiana State Police Col. Kevin Reeves is not appearing due to ongoing investigations.
Lt. John Cleary is not appearing because of active cases.
Master Trooper Kory York declined to attend due to ongoing investigations.
LSP Investigator Sgt. Albert Paxton stepped to the table to take some questions from the committee.
Paxton was involved from the start in the Ronald Greene investigation.
Sgt. Paxton took questions from the committee and the entire back and forth can be seen below.
The mother of Ronald Greene then spoke in front of the committee along with Eugene Collins, President of the NAACP Baton Rouge Branch.
The agenda for the Senate Select Committee on State Police Oversight meeting can be found here.
