#TalkRadio – October 3: Protect and Serve Who? Rogue Policing in Baton Rouge

SPEAKERS:

Jessica Hawkins, Esq.: 12:00 PM – 12:57 PM ET
Co-Counsel for Ternell Brown and Jeremy Lee against the Baton Rouge Police Department

INTRODUCTION:

he Igniting Change Radio Show on Tuesday, October 3rd, 2023, from 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM Eastern Time, entitled, “Protect and Serve Who? Rogue Policing in Baton Rouge”, will be live with Radio Show Co-Hosts and Transformative Justice Coalition (TJC) Co-Leaders Attorneys Barbara Arnwine, Esq. and Daryl Jones, Esq. and guest Jessica Hawkins, Esq. This week’s show focuses on a disturbing story of extrajudicial punishment by police of the Baton Rouge Police Department who tortured, tased, strip searched, and sexually abused arrestees. Igniting Change guest, Jessica Hawkins, Esq., is a co-counsel for two of the plaintiffs suing the police department for their treatment heading to and at this blacksite. 

“Three Baton Rouge Police Department officers have been placed on administrative leave as investigations continue into an alleged police ‘torture warehouse’ in Louisiana dubbed the Brave Cave. Among the three now on leave is Deputy Chief Troy Lawrence, Baton Rouge Police Chief Murphy Paul announced Wednesday. The deputy chief is a high-ranking member of the department whose son, former officer Troy Lawrence Jr., was named in a federal lawsuit alleging brutal and sexually humiliating interrogation tactics at the off-site warehouse. The son, Lawrence Jr., who has since resigned from the police force, was arrested and charged last week in a separate battery incident, according to authorities.

“‘We will hold ourselves accountable,’ Paul said at Wednesday’s regularly scheduled city council meeting. ‘The investigative efforts will yield accountability that will meet community expectations.’

“CNN has reached out to Deputy Chief Lawrence’s attorney for comment.

“Multiple investigations are underway into the police department’s practices and the now-shuttered warehouse facility, including by the FBI and Baton Rouge Police, according to Baton Rouge Mayor Sharon Weston Broome. ‘I know we are all committed to accountability, justice and reform,’ Broome said.

“The police department is also facing lawsuits over the conduct of officers at the warehouse, which officers allegedly referred to as the ‘brave cave,’ according to complaints made this year.

“The complaints allege detainees taken to the facility were beaten or subjected to strip searches. The warehouse, officially known as the Narcotics Processing Facility, ‘has been permanently closed and the Street Crimes Unit Officers have been disbanded and reassigned,’ according to a previous police department statement.

“The latest lawsuit filed last week alleges a Baton Rouge grandmother, Ternell Brown, was stopped by officers while she was in the car with her husband in June. Brown was carrying two different types of prescription pills in the same container, ‘which she lawfully possessed,’ it reads. The grandmother ‘was taken to BRPD’s black site, where she was forced to show officers that she was not hiding contraband in her vagina or rectum. After more than two hours, they let her go without charge,’ the complaint states.

“Another lawsuit, filed last month, alleges Baton Rouge resident Jeremy Lee, 21, was taken to the warehouse on January 9 and beaten as the officers periodically turned their body cameras on and off. Before being taken to the warehouse, Lee had been detained at a home ‘without reasonable suspicion or probable cause,’ said the complaint. He was forced down in the middle of the street, his pants were pulled down so they could search him – in public – and officers grabbed his genitals. When he asked, the officers refused to tell him why he was being arrested, according to the complaint.

“Jessica F. Hawkins, an attorney representing both plaintiffs, has said that she is ‘receiving calls daily from Baton Rouge residents who were taken to this black site and illegally strip searched.’

‘These instances of abuse need to be properly investigated and addressed and whoever carried out these atrocities needs to be held accountable,’ Hawkins said in a news release.”

Read the Source and more in the September 28th CNN article “3 Baton Rouge police officers are on leave as investigations continue into ‘Brave Cave’ alleged police torture warehouse” written by Kevin Conlon.

QUESTIONS:

• Welcome to Igniting Change with your inaugural appearance. You are involved in one of the most controversial cases in the U.S. right now of rampant, pervasive, and unconstitutional police misconduct and human torture. How did you get involved in the case of representing Miss Ternell Brown and Mr. Jeremy Lee against the Baton Rouge Police Department?
• Prior to this case, had you heard any rumors about “the Brave Cave” or misconduct/complaints by the “Street Crimes Unit”?
• What have been the consequences of this whole exposé of the Street Crimes Unit and the “Brave Cave”?
• When I first heard about the “Brave Cave”, I first thought of Homan Square in Chicago; the “jump-out boys” in Baltimore and Atlanta; the Scorpion Unit that murdered Tyre Nichols; and, of course, I thought of  the murder of Alton Sterling by the Baton Rouge Police and that no charges had ever been brought against those officers. Is this rogue-ish behavior a pattern and practice of the Baton Rouge Police or is it just part of a national phenomenon?
• In your opinion, how has the local government, the city council, the Mayor, and the police chief handled this uncovering of this inhumane treatment?
• Do you think the Deputy Chief and the two other officers being placed on administrative leave is enough to prompt reform in this department?
• There have been calls for the police chief to resign. He has responded that the predominantly-White city council is in cahoots with the police union and has tied his hands and has opposed his efforts to reform the police department?
• The Black police chief has called on the federal government to investigate his own police. What do you think will be the consequences of a federal investigation?
• How is it that a predominantly Black city like Baton Rouge is controlled by a White city council? How is it that a school system that is predominantly Black is controlled by a White school board? What is going on with Black political power in Baton Rouge?
• What do you expect to happen next in your case?
• As the revelations about the Brave Cave have caused a national uproar, what would you recommend our listeners do to help to bring justice to victims of the Brave Cave and to stop this rogue-ish policing?
• What do you think is the most important grassroots organizing that you think needs to happen in order to ensure strong voter protection and engagement in November 2023 and 2024?
• What are your final thoughts to our listeners?
• Thank you for all of your hard work. How do our listeners get in contact with you?

[At the top of segment four, Barbara and Daryl will give a brief reminder about the US Department of Agriculture’s Discrimination Financial Assistance Program. The Black farmers fund, from the Discrimination Financial Assistance Program, is being funded by the Inflation Reduction Act. The Inflation Reduction Act contains an assistance fund for farmers who were discriminated against. This fund has $2.2b to cover 75 million applicants and covers anyone who can provide proof that they were discriminated against by the federal government. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is extending the deadline for the Discrimination Financial Assistance Program to January 13, 2024, to give eligible farmers, ranchers and forest landowners more time to apply for assistance. The original deadline was October 31, 2023. In addition to the application deadline change, the deadline to request records from USDA’s Farm Service Agency for use in applications has been extended to Friday, Nov. 3, 2023. The application process was designed so that FSA records are not required, though relevant records may be attached to an application as additional evidence if they are available. To learn more about the Discrimination Financial Assistance Program or receive assistance in English or Spanish, visit www.22007apply.gov, email info@22007apply.gov or contact the national call center at 1-800-721-0970 from 8 a.m. ET to 8 p.m. PT, every day except federal holidays. If you use sign language to communicate, you can use the 711 relay service to call. You may also email or contact the national call center if you have a disability and need another accommodation. Information about the program, resources, recent office openings and local events across the country is also available through a weekly e-newsletter.]