Video: Shackled Black man ordered facedown in deadly arrest

[dalton99a]

https://apnews.com/article/george-floyd-arrests-77dd5a8ceaf2f293efb83c0177d61c4f

Video: Shackled Black man ordered facedown in deadly arrest
By JIM MUSTIAN

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Beaten and shackled by Louisiana state troopers, Black motorist Ronald Greene desperately tried to roll over in what may have been a struggle to breathe but was ordered to stay on his belly, according to body-camera video newly obtained by The Associated Press.

And the long-secret autopsy report, also newly secured, cited Greene’s head injuries and the way he was restrained as factors in his 2019 death. It also noted he had high levels of cocaine and alcohol in his system as well as a broken breastbone and a torn aorta.

“I beat the ever-living f--- out of him, choked him and everything else trying to get him under control,” Trooper Chris Hollingsworth can be heard telling a fellow officer in the newly obtained batch of video. “All of a sudden he just went limp. ... I thought he was dead.”

“You all got that on bodycam?” the other officer asks over the phone, at which point Hollingsworth switches his camera off.

[peppertree]

1. The coverup in this case is reminiscent of the "fell down stairs" line during Apartheid South Africa

As you know, police beatings and torture of black and colored people were practically daily life in Apartheid South Africa.

But mindful of growing international scrutiny in the 1970s and '80s (plus the country's own, very active legal profession), police were instructed to provide at least some explanation for detainees' deaths.

Before long, whenever anyone died in custody the cause of death would often be listed as "fell down stairs."

"South Africa," an activist pointed out, "has become the country with the world's most dangerous stairs!"