Before the video was revealed, the story was simple and benign. Ronald Greene died in a car crash following his flight from police. Nothing to see here. Then there was video.
To be clear, fleeing from police is neither a good nor acceptable thing to do, even if some would argue that it’s understandable given the perception that the police will treat a black motorist disrespectfully at best or violently at worst. Nobody wants to be pulled over and killed, and regardless of the unlikelihood of that outcome, that is the prevailing perception in the current climate.
Greene, a barber, failed to pull over for an unspecified traffic violation shortly after midnight on May 10, 2019, about 30 miles south of the Arkansas state line. That’s where the video obtained by AP begins, with Trooper Dakota DeMoss chasing Greene’s SUV on rural highways at over 115 mph.
Seconds before the chase ended, DeMoss warned on his radio: “We got to do something. He’s going to kill somebody.”
But none of this provides any justification for what followed.
Hollingsworth shocks Greene with a stun gun within seconds through the driver’s side window as both troopers demand he get out of the vehicle.
Greene exits through the passenger side as the troopers wrestle him to the ground. One trooper can be heard saying “He’s grabbing me” as they try to handcuff him. “Put your hands behind your back, bitch,” one trooper says.
Hollingsworth strikes Greene multiple times and appears to lie on one of his arms before he is finally handcuffed.
And then things get even worse.
At one point, Trooper Kory York yanks Greene’s leg shackles and briefly drags the man on his stomach even though he isn’t resisting.
Note that Greene was already in leg shackles, meaning he wasn’t going anywhere, not that it would have been acceptable under any circumstances.
Hollingsworth, in a separate recording obtained by AP, can be heard telling a colleague at the office that “he beat the ever-living f— out of” Greene.
“Choked him and everything else trying to get him under control,” Hollingsworth is heard saying. “He was spitting blood everywhere, and all of a sudden he just went limp.”
It’s neither surprising nor unusual for cops who are compelled to chase after someone to decide that it’s their job, or perhaps their entitlement, to teach the guy a lesson by giving him a good tuning up. Ronald Greene ended up dead.
Exactly what caused Greene’s death remains unclear. Union Parish Coroner Renee Smith told AP last year his death was ruled accidental and attributed to cardiac arrest. Smith, who was not in office when that determination was made, said her office’s file on Greene attributed his death to a car crash and made no mention of a struggle with State Police.
The AP last year also obtained a medical report showing an emergency room doctor noted Greene arrived dead at the hospital, bruised and bloodied with two stun-gun prongs in his back. That led the doctor to question troopers’ initial account that Greene had “died on impact” after crashing into a tree.
The cops lied. But for video, no one would have questioned their lie, and they might well have gotten away with their lie.
“I’m your brother! I’m scared! I’m scared!” Ronald Greene can be heard telling the white troopers as the unarmed man is jolted repeatedly with a stun gun before he even gets out of his car along a dark, rural road.
To the extent anyone can credibly argue that the wisest course of action when stopped by police is not to resist, horrific and inexplicable cases like this make it fall flat. Between the outrageous conduct of needless violence and the lie perpetrated to conceal what they did to Ronald Greene that ended in his killing, it is unreasonable for any decent cop to deny that this shouldn’t cause people to fear and loathe police.
Louisiana officials have rebuffed repeated calls to release footage and details about what caused the 49-year-old’s death. Troopers initially told Greene’s family he died on impact after crashing into a tree during the chase. Later, State Police released a one-page statement acknowledging only that Greene struggled with troopers and died on his way to the hospital.
There were a lot of fingers in the killing and coverup of Ronald Greene. There are no excuses for any of them. Rest in peace, Ronald Greene.
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“To the extent anyone can credibly argue that the wisest course of action when stopped by police is not to resist, horrific and inexplicable cases like this make it fall flat.”
Anyone making such an argument would doubtless include “leading the police on a high-speed chase” in the definition of resistance.
Under the assumption that the cops have a legit reason to make a stop, whatever follows should still be within the constraints of the law and not cops beating that mutt for kicks. Yes, he fled. No, that doesn’t mean they get a free beating.
SHG.
But maybe he fled because he anticipated a beating.
If so, that wouldn’t be surprising, even if it was an unwise decision and based more in the exaggerated fears generated by social media hysteria than the probability of it happening. This is one of the problems with social media creating narratives that push people to act out of hyperbolic fear. It may be understandable, but it can also be deadly.
White people fear black people and black people fear white people.
If one looks hard enough one can find evidence that the fears are IRRATIONAL.
Also
If one looks hard enough one can find evidence that such fears are RATIONAL.
In EVERY human mind there is a split between ideas of people like us who possess every virtue and people not like us who possess no virtues but every vice. That is the problem, normal human nature!!!!!
There’s evidence for pretty much anything, but tails don’t wag dogs. If you want to stay alive, do what’s most likely to accomplish that end and don’t let hysteria dictate your fears.
People do not make good decisions in a mental state of absolute panic. I would argue that both Greene and the police were operating in such a state.
However citizens have a right to expect that police act calm and rationally, I would argue that it is not so reasonable to expect the same from a Black man chased by the police who is also conscious of the case of George Floyd.
Absolutely. Greene’s poor choice is no justification for the police’s outrageous conduct. It remains their duty to react calmly and rationally regardless.
But is the outrageous conduct of the police justification of Greene’s fleeing?
There is reality and then their is human perception of reality. Relative to reality humans’ perceptions of reality are distorted. The extent of the distortion depends on the community of which we think of ourselves as members.
I collect links to new articles in my browser arranged in a hierarchy of folders. One entry in the hierarchy is /police/killings/ and under it are subfolders named of_blacks, of_hispanics & of_whites and under these subfolders by name of person killed. Under of_blacks there are 54 names, under of_hispanics there are 16 and under of_whites 5. This crude set of statistics represent frequency of web news articles that I see but black people also get ideas of frequency from community grapevine stories, from experiences of relatives and from personal experience. I have no doubt that they overestimate the probability of bad interactions but is their overestimation as pronounced as you and I think it is?
Legal justification? No. Understandable? Perhaps. But do you want to be “understandable but dead” or alive?
Shocking. Even in Louisiana, where the governor is of the kinder, gentler, Democratic racist persuasion, it seems the whuppin’ and a-whompin’ of black folks still goes on, together with the lies and cover-up attempts. It’s like the Illinois of the deep south.
Now Grandpa Blinkey is going to have to once again send the Department of Justice down there to sort this mess out and get the state-level flunkies in line on the whuppin’ and a-whompin’ moratorium. It’s embarrassing.
Once again, police flagrantly and unequivocally lie to the public about an incident. And once again, absolutely nothing will happen to anyone involved in that lie. Is it any wonder they feel no need for restraint?