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Ronald Greene was beaten to death in 2019 by a group of white state troopers in Monroe, Louisiana. Initially, Trooper Dakota DeMoss, Trooper Kory York, and Master Trooper Chris Hollingsworth attempted to cover up their fatal abuse of power by reporting that Greene died when he crashed into a tree. Following that lie, the troopers said that Greene struggled with officers and died on the way to the hospital.
The only reason we learned the truth about what happened is because AP News was able to obtain the body camera footage from the incident. Sufficed to say, the video did not match the story that DeMoss, York, and Hollingsworth were trying to sell.
According to WREG, Greene’s family has recently been uplifted by Tyre Nichols’ parents RowVaughn and Rodney Wells who have joined ubiquitous civil rights attorney Ben Crump to help achieve justice for Ronald, “I wanted to know why there wasn’t a civil rights case for him,” said Ms. Wells.
Greene’s mother, Mona Hardin, told ABC24 that she’s disturbed that a Black officer was fired for her son’s death but the white officers involved were allowed to retire without proper discipline. She also noted that one of those officers, Trooper Hollingsworth, died in a car accident before he could be terminated.
“He bragged about ‘I beat the ever-lovin’ f*** out of him.’ His words… A year later we were told they were gonna fire him and he died in a car wreck,” said Hardin. “And his records are sealed. Why is that? He bragged about what he’d did to my son. But when he died, his burial was with all the bells and whistles of a hero.”
This is why Black people and other people of color will never give officers the benefit of the doubt. Far too many “bad apples” have gotten away with far too much killing and covering up to believe in the good faith.