“No amount of money can erase” the pain that motorist Ronald Greene’s death at the hands of Louisiana police inflicted on his loved ones, but a $4.85m settlement which the state has agreed to pay his family helps illustrate how “the truth must always come to light”, their attorney has said.
Ben Crump recently expressed those sentiments in a statement that served as one of his and his clients’ first public reactions to news first reported by the Guardian that mediation talks on 12 May had yielded a settlement between Louisiana authorities and Greene’s family.
Subject to approval by Louisiana’s legislature, the settlement would end a federal wrongful death lawsuit filed by Greene’s daughter, Tayla, after the Associated Press in 2021 obtained video footage showing officers punching, kicking and using stun guns on her father. The outlet’s publication and reporting of that footage, which was captured by officers’ body-worn cameras but then held secret, ensured attention on Greene’s case across the US and prompted outrage over it.
Greene, who is Black, died when five white officers violently arrested him on the side of a road outside the Louisiana community of Monroe in 2019.
Authorities for two years shielded the public from the truth about the circumstances of the traffic stop and high-speed chase immediately preceding Greene’s death. State police refused to release footage of the arrest and claimed Greene, 49, died after crashing into a tree during the chase.
Yet the video later obtained by the AP then showed officers had shocked the unarmed Greene with stun guns as he apologized for the pursuit. Officers tackled Greene to the ground, put him in a chokehold and punched him.
They dragged Greene while he was handcuffed and his legs were shackled – before leaving him on the ground without aiding him.
“I’m your brother!” Greene screamed during his arrest. “I’m scared! I’m scared!”
Officers at first had sought to stop Greene for an unspecified alleged traffic violation.
Two of the officers were eventually charged by local authorities with misdemeanor battery: Kory York of Louisiana’s state police, and Chris Harpin of the Monroe-area Union parish sheriff’s office. Each pleaded no contest.
Another of the officers, Gage Hollingsworth of the state police, died in a high-speed, single-car wreck in 2020, within hours of being told he was being fired over his role in Greene’s death.
Federal justice department prosecutors declined to bring charges in the case. In the final days of Joe Biden’s presidency, the US justice department found that Louisiana’s state police engaged in a pattern of excessive force during arrests and car chases. But the justice department rescinded those conclusions after the beginning of Donald Trump’s second presidency.
The AP reported the truth about Greene’s death roughly a year after a bystander recorded video of a white Minneapolis police officer murdering Black resident George Floyd, igniting racial justice protests internationally. Crump represented Floyd’s family in a wrongful death lawsuit that culminated in a $27m settlement.
Louisiana’s Republican attorney general, Liz Murrill, on 13 May confirmed without detailing specifics that there had been a settlement agreement with Greene’s family. “It was time to end this litigation,” said the statement from Murrill, who alluded to the fact that Greene died during the administration of former Louisiana governor John Bel Edwards, a Democrat.
A few days after Murrill’s statement, Greene’s mother, Mona Hardin, wrote on social media that she and her family were “still fighting for accountability” seven years on from the death of her son.
“We ALL hurt like hell, Ronnie,” Hardin wrote. “Missing you terribly.”
The AP contributed reporting
