Baton Rouge Cops Indicted for Violent In-Custody Strip-Search
On June 26, 2024, a special grand jury in Louisiana’s East Baton Rouge Parish indicted four officers with the Baton Rouge Police Department (BRPD) for their violent strip search of a suspect in custody. The September 2020 incident was recorded when a body-worn camera (BWC) activated without the knowledge of the four, Lt. Troy Lawrence, Sr. and Cpls. Douglas Chutz, Todd Thomas and Martele Jackson. A fifth cop, Cpl. Jesse Barcelona, was not indicted.
All five remain with BRPD, though all but Barcelona are on leave. An arrest warrant was issued for Jackson; Lawrence, Chutz and Thomas had been arrested in 2023. All four were members of BRPD’s now-disbanded “street crimes unit” (SCU) when they responded with fellow cops and FBI agents to reports of a gun-waving crowd gathered outside a Chippewa St. home in September 2020. The group was actually filming a music video with Kentrell Gaulden, a rapper who performs as NBA YoungBoy.
Nevertheless, officers took several performers to BRPD’s First Precinct for a strip-search. They then put them in a vehicle for transport to East Baton Rouge Parish Prison, when one began acting suspiciously, they said. They returned him to the First Precinct for another strip-search, this time beating him and shooting him with a Taser—which also activated Jackson’s BWC. That, in turn, then captured both the assault and drugs which fell from the man’s pockets.
When they realized that the incident had been filmed, the four reviewed the video and agreed it didn’t look good. Jackson hid the BWC and reported it lost. Meanwhile, the office of District Attorney Hillar Moore failed to file charges against any of those who had been detained, so their case was dismissed in May 2023. An anonymous complaint about the incident then arrived at BRPD, sparking an investigation. Jackson quickly admitted lying about the missing BWC and turned whistle-blower on the rest.
SCU was disbanded by former BRPD Chief Murphy Paul in August 2023, the same month that he and Parish Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broom closed the “Brave Cave,” a location outside the precinct where SCU suspects were held and interrogated. Moore was making headlines at the same time, as PLN reported, with a lawsuit he filed to thwart clemency hearings for the state’s condemned prisoners that had been championed by outgoing Gov. Jon Bel Edwards (D). [See: PLN, Dec. 2023, p.48.]
It remains to be seen if Moore will cut plea deals with any of the accused officers. Paul has retired, so it will be up to new Chief Thomas Morse whether the four remain on leave as their cases proceed.
Sources: US News, WAFB