Louisiana Governor Denies Delaying Probe Into Police Killing Of Ronald Greene

Photo: Video Screenshot

BATON ROUGE, La. — Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards defiantly denied Tuesday that he delayed or interfered with investigations into the deadly 2019 arrest of Ronald Greene (shown above, with cop's foot on him)— and for the first time he characterized the actions of the troopers seen on video stunning, punching and dragging the Black man as racist.

“I can’t imagine if Mr. Greene had been white he would have been treated that way,” an emotional Edwards told a news conference. “I think we have to acknowledge racism when we see it. We have to call it what it is.”

The Democratic governor rejected the idea that his response to the Greene case was driven by a tight reelection campaign that depended heavily on the Black vote. He said that notion is nonsensical because prosecutors had the Greene case well before his election.

“Nothing like that has ever happened because of me,” he said. “That is not who I am as a person."

Edwards’ remarks were the first since an Associated Press report last week that showed he had been notified within hours of Greene’s death that troopers engaged in a “violent, lengthy struggle,” yet he kept quiet for two years as police told a much different story to the victim’s family and in official reports: that Greene died from a crash following a high-speed chase. Read more.