Two years ago in Monroe, LA, a State Police trooper attacked a Black motorist, hitting him 18 times with a flashlight. The body cam footage has recently been released showing the incident left Aaron Larry Bowman with a broken jaw, broken ribs, a broken wrist, and required six staples to the head.
Less than three weeks before Bowman was attacked by police, troopers from the same agency attacked another Black motorist, Ronald Greene, who eventually died in police custody on the side of the road in NE Louisiana. Greene’s murder was also hidden until the body cam was recently released.
Jacob Brown, the white officer who attacked Bowman, didn’t report the use of force to his supervisors and the attack wasn’t even investigated until 536 days after it happened. At the time of his resignation, Brown had 23 use-of-force incidents and 19 were targeting Black people.
According to AP News, “Brown not only failed to report his use of force but mislabeled his footage as a “citizen encounter” in what investigators called “an intentional attempt to hide the video from any administrative review.” Bowman’s defense attorney, Keith Whiddon, said he was initially told there was no body-camera video.
Bowman is not seen fighting back in the video even though the officer claimed “pain compliance”. “I kept thinking I was going to die that night,” Bowman told the AP through tears in a recent interview. “It was like reliving it all over again. By watching it, I broke down all over again.” “I don’t want nobody to go through that.”
