Louisiana State Police have held a consistent presence in local news recently due in part to the widespread and wide-ranging problems at the state’s flagship law enforcement agency.
In the days preceding the extraordinarily busy fourth of July travel weekend, LSP Superintendent Col. Lamar Davis was pulled over by one of his own troopers—but spoiler alert, he didn’t get a ticket.
This is a comical reprieve from the very serious and pressing issues facing the agency, but it is emblematic of how the agency functions on a wider level.
The police agency is under multiple investigations including a federal pattern and practice review which threatens to put the organization under federal consent decree—a court order mandating changes within the department.
The New Orleans Police Department, after an extensive pattern and practice review, was placed under a comprehensive consent decree governing the department and remains under federal supervision. This is an example of how the Justice Department has reshaped departments in Louisiana.
The State police have been subject to increased scrutiny since the inhumane murder of Ronald Greene in northern Louisiana.
The case was the latest in a string of high-profile killings of African Americans by police in the United States and this led to numerous resignations and early retirements at the agency.
The Greene case was particularly enlightening to due to massive public awareness due to the release of Body Camera footage by the Associated Press that contradicted the past statements of the LSP regarding how Greene passed.
The Legislature even got involved by convening a bipartisan special committee to investigate the circumstances behind the death of Greene after multiple media reports started to detail the day in more clarity rather than the smokescreen offered by the state’s police agency.
The committee’s work is not done and last month it was set to hear testimony from the Governor and his top legal counsel until the meeting was postponed because of a court-ordered redistricting session to consider plans to add an additional majority minority district to the state’s congressional map.
The Legislature failed to pass a plan that would create two majority minority congressional districts.
Politicians in Baton Rouge failed to pass a redistricting plan that would expand Louisiana’s minority representation in Washington for the same reason that the state’s flagship policing agency covered up the murder of Ronald Greene—institutional ambivalence of racist tendencies.
It’s a problem that far too many in Louisiana have had to witness and it is something that as a state we need to do considerable soul searching about.
Soon enough, we will know more about the consequences that the state police will face and what reforms might have to be implemented.
It can’t be soon enough, but I wonder if any policy change can truly change the root problems at the agency.
Charlie Stephens is a 21-year-old political communication senior from Baton Rouge