#TalkRadio – November 21: Protect and Serve Who? Rogue Policing in Baton Rouge Part 2

SPEAKERS:

Judge Alexander Williams: 12:00 PM – 12:57 PM ET
Immediately following law school, in 1973, Judge Williams served as law clerk to the Honorable James H. Taylor of the Seventh Judicial Circuit of Maryland. He engaged in private practice at various times from 1974 to 1986. Judge Williams performed in other capacities during this period, including municipal attorney for Fairmount Heights, 1975-87; part-time substitute juvenile master for Prince George’s County Circuit Court, 1976-77; assistant public defender for Prince George’s County Public Defender’s Office, 1977-78; part-time special counsel and hearing examiner for Prince George’s County Board of Education, 1978-87; and municipal attorney, Glenarden, 1980-87. Judge Williams was a Professor of Law at Howard University School of Law from 1978-89. From 1987 to 1994, Judge Williams served as the elected State’s Attorney for Prince George’s County, Maryland. On August 3, 1993, Judge Williams was nominated by President Clinton for a vacancy in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland. His nomination was confirmed by the Senate on August 17, 1994, and Judge Williams received his commission on August 18, 1994. Judge Williams elected senior status on May 8, 2013 and retired from the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland on January 3, 2014. In addition, he is the founder, member and first president of the J. Franklyn Bourne Bar Association, as well as a member of the National and Prince George’s County Bar Associations. Some of Judge Williams’ professional associations include a member of the Commission on Medical Discipline, 1980-85; member of the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission, 1983-87, and chair, 1986-87; member of the State’s Attorneys Coordination Council, 1987-89; member of the Court of Appeals Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure, 1984-86; and member of the Handgun Roster Board, 1992-94.

Jessica Hawkins, Esq.: 12:00 PM – 12:57 PM ET
Co-Counsel in several lawsuits against the Baton Rouge Police Department

Ryan Thompson, Esq.: 12:00 PM – 12:57 PM ET
Co-Counsel in several lawsuits against the Baton Rouge Police Department

INTRODUCTION:

The Igniting Change Radio Show on Tuesday, November 21st, 2023, from 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM Eastern Time, entitled, “Protect and Serve Who? Rogue Policing in Baton Rouge Part 2”, will be live with Radio Show Co-Hosts and Transformative Justice Coalition (TJC) Co-Leaders Attorneys Barbara Arnwine, Esq. and Daryl Jones, Esq. and guests Judge Alexander Williams; Attorney Jessica F. Hawkins; and Attorney Ryan Thompson. This week’s show will follow up on Igniting Change’s October 3rd coverage of the secretive and horrific operation of the “Brave Cave” black site in Baton Rogue which for more than a decade was used by Baton Rogue police officers to torture, brutalize and sexually assault hundreds of Black “suspects” prior to formal arrest or processing. 

In the fourth segment, this show will highlight the horrendous ruling by the 8th Circuit that there is no private right of action to sue under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. While organizations like the Heritage Foundation now celebrate the 10th Anniversary of Shelby County v. Holder, this 8th Circuit Court ruling represents another strike to the enforcement of the Voting Rights Act that is even more dangerous to the future of voting rights than Shelby v. Holder was. The Igniting Change guests and Barbara and Daryl will discuss why this is so, how the Transformative Justice Coalition is already in this fight, and what actions TJC is taking.

The guests today include attorneys who filed suit last week in federal court seeking redress for those subjected to this illegal “Brave Cave” and former US Former US District Court Judge Alexander Williams. 

On the evening of November 13th, Attorneys Jessica F. Hawkins and Ryan Thompson filed suit in the Middle District of Louisiana against the Baton Rouge Police Department, Chief of Police Murphy Paiul, Officer Tafari Beard, Officer Steven Nevels, two John Doe officers, the City of Baton Rouge, and the Parish of East Baton Rouge for fourth amendment violations and other claims related to the now infamous BRAVE Cave.

See the press release here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/15s_L6wM7u7MmIOSFq–eDEOuf6-b08EX/view?usp=sharing 

See the copy of the Complaint here: 
https://drive.google.com/file/d/18QcaqEaPqmMQwV58pdHYh2gjS0aUTByU/view?usp=sharing 

• The I-TEAM at CBS’ WAFB 9News in Louisiana published an article on November 14th covering this new lawsuit:
• “The Baton Rouge Police Department is facing yet another federal lawsuit tied to the infamous Brave Cave, a now closed warehouse that had been used by the now disbanded Street Crimes Unit for off-the-books questioning and alleged abuse for years. In the lawsuit, a man named Jason Jackson was allegedly taken there back on May 10, 2023 following a traffic stop near Memorial Stadium…
• “‘The officer who made contact with him initially said that he was making some questionable movements inside the vehicle. What that means, we don’t know and at that point he was taken out of the vehicle, shackled at the hands and feet and place in the vehicle,’ said Thompson. ‘According to him there was a search of his vehicle that was done by those officers but there was no real reason other than looking suspicious that he was stopped.’
• “Despite officers finding nothing inside the car, the attorney alleges Jackson was taken to the secretive warehouse anyway where he was allegedly handcuffed to a bar, forced to strip naked and he claims at least one of the four officers there grabbed his genitals while carrying out an illegal body cavity search.
• “At one point during the search, the lawsuit states officers told him they had a K9 inside the facility and that they would let the dog ‘tear him up’ if he tried to run. According to his attorney, the search was so humiliating that while the man was bent over he started to cry. Hours later, Thompson tells the WAFB I-TEAM the cavity search turned up nothing and that’s when officers apologized before letting Jackson go without a ticket.
• “This lawsuit adds to the more than a dozen complaints that have been filed with BRPD over the Brave Cave since the WAFB I-TEAM first exposed the secretive facility back in August. It also comes after four officers have already been arrested for their alleged roles in a reported beating and cover-up and as the FBI continues its probe into alleged abuses of power by officers within the agency.”

Attorneys Hawkins and Thompson, who represent the Plaintiff in this new lawsuit, stated in their press that:

• “Research has revealed a 2014 federal lawsuit that ended in 2016 when a local jury found that former BRPD officer Jason Acree had conducted a strip search which violated the Plaintiff’s Fourth Amendment rights. That jury also found that the moving force behind the unconstitutional strip search by Acree was a custom or policy of the City of Baton Rouge/BRPD, of which the City of Baton Rouge knew or should have known and was deliberately indifferent to.
• “Two months after this jury award, BRPD revised its Strip Search Policy. However, those amendments only served to codify the Department’s already long-standing custom of unconstitutional strip searches and shows an outright refusal to make meaningful change within the Department.
• “These new details appear in a federal lawsuit filed in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana on Monday, November 14, 2023. The plaintiff, a Baton Rouge man, was stopped for a routine traffic matter when BRPD officers shackled his hands and ankles, took him to the BRAVE Cave, and threatened with a canine before officers conducted illegal Strip and Body Cavity searches upon him. Plaintiff was then transported back to his vehicle and not issued a single summons or citation.
• “Ryan K. Thompson, Counsel for Plaintiff: ‘You don’t have to go to Afghanistan or Guantanamo to find black sites where people are tortured. We have one right here in Baton Rouge, run by the Baton Rouge Police Department. Each day we learn more and more about this facility, and each day it gets worse. There is no greater purveyor of sexual violence in Baton Rouge than BRPD.’ “

BACKGROUND ON THE BRAVE CAVE

Here is some background for those who haven’t heard of the disturbing story of extrajudicial punishment by police of the Baton Rouge Police Department who tortured, tased, strip searched, and sexually abused arrestees. 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.

• “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 [lawsuit filed in September] 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 [in August], 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.”

QUESTIONS:

FIRST AND SECOND SEGMENTS

• 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. We discussed the Brave Cave on our October 3rd Igniting Change radio show. For those who don’t know, what is the history of the Brave Cave, and how was it discovered?
• How did each of you get involved in the case against the Baton Rouge Police Department?
• On the evening of November 13th, Attorneys Jessica F. Hawkins and Ryan Thompson filed suit in the Middle District of Louisiana against the Baton Rouge Police Department, Chief of Police Murphy Paiul, Officer Tafari Beard, Officer Steven Nevels, two John Doe officers, the City of Baton Rouge, and the Parish of East Baton Rouge for fourth amendment violations and other claims related to the now infamous BRAVE Cave. Please tell us about this lawsuit.
• Attorneys Hawkins and Thompson, can you go deeper into the history that you described in your recent press release and complaint of the rogue-ish behavior being a pattern and practice of the Baton Rouge Police Department.
• What have been the consequences of this whole exposé of the Street Crimes Unit and the “Brave Cave”?
• What do you expect to happen next in this case and the other cases?

SEGMENT THREE

• Attorneys Hawkins and Thompson, as I said on our October 3rd show, 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. The same DOJ that investigated the murder of Alton Sterling and didn’t find anything about the Brave Cave is the same DOJ who, as you stated in your lawsuit, said they were doing an investigation yet didn’t contact anyone. What do you think about this?
• Judge Williams, what do you think are the implications of these torture chambers being operated by these police departments?
• Since this Brave Cave operated in secret for possibly 2 decades, should Black communities nationwide be on alert to fare out possible copycats in other cities and towns?
• What are the next steps? 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?

SEGMENT FOUR

• [Barbara, Daryl, and guests will discuss the horrendous ruling by the 8th Circuit that there is no private right of action to sue under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. While organizations like the Heritage Foundation now celebrate the 10th Anniversary of Shelby County v. Holder, this 8th Circuit Court ruling represents another strike to the enforcement of the Voting Rights Act that is even more dangerous to the future of voting rights than Shelby v. Holder was. The Igniting Change guests and Barbara and Daryl will discuss why this is so, how the Transformative Justice Coalition is already in this fight, and what actions TJC is taking.]
• 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?