You turn to us for voices you won't hear anywhere else.

Sign up for Democracy Now!'s Daily Digest to get our latest headlines and stories delivered to your inbox every day.

Newly Surfaced Video Shows White Louisiana Police Officer Brutally Beating Black Motorist

HeadlineAug 26, 2021

In Louisiana, a lawyer for a Black motorist who was brutally beaten by a white State Police trooper more than two years ago has obtained body-camera video of the incident. The video from May 2019 was also obtained by the Associated Press. It shows officer Jacob Brown striking Aaron Larry Bowman with a flashlight 18 times. The assault left Bowman with a broken jaw, broken wrist, three broken ribs and six stitches on his head. Louisiana State Police waited 536 days to open an investigation — and only did so after Bowman brought a civil lawsuit.

Last December, state prosecutors charged officer Brown with aggravated battery and malfeasance in office; those charges remain on hold pending a federal investigation. Brown is from the same State Police unit — known as “Troop F” — whose officers killed Ronald Greene, a 49-year-old Black man, by tasering, punching and dragging him during an arrest in 2019. Troop F is under an internal investigation looking into whether white officers are systematically targeting Black motorists for abuse.

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top