Louisiana Legislative Black Caucus Chairman Pierre: “Caucus relationship with Gov. Edwards is great….he’s done everything he possibly can to ensure justice for Greene family,” states Caucus would stand behind him in any impeachment proceedings.

Louisiana State Rep. Vincent J. Pierre (D-Lafayette), Chairman of the Louisiana Legislative Black Caucus.

Last week, the Louisiana Legislative Black Caucus (LLBC) insisted that Gov. John Bel Edwards meet with them regarding the arrest of Ronald Greene on May 10, 2019.  Greene suffered an in-custody death at the hands of Louisiana State Police (LSP) troopers wherein leaked videos depict that he suffered a severe beating and tasing.  Those LSP trooper actions transpired despite the fact that, contrary to the long-time narrative of LSP that Greene was “combative” and put up a mighty struggle to resist arrest, Greene appeared to plead for his life and apologize for having taken the troopers on a high-speed chase through two parishes at speeds in excess of 100 MPH.

By all accounts, that  meeting between Gov. Edwards and the LLBC became quite heated.  From the just-linked feature:

The governor’s news conference came just minutes after a heated, closed-door meeting with the Legislative Black Caucus that at times erupted with members cursing over his muted response to Greene’s deadly arrest.

“A man died in custody. You don’t ask his name? You don’t ask what happened? You don’t get any facts?” one of the caucus members said, according to audio of the meeting obtained by the AP.

“This matter will not go away until there is an acknowledgement that there was a cover-up,” said another.

In light of the foregoing, Sound Off Louisiana’s founder, Robert Burns, asked the guest speaker at the meeting of the Baton Rouge Press Club (BRPC), who happened to be the newly-elected Chairman of the LLBC, State Rep. Vincent J. Pierre (D-Lafayette) a few questions, to wit:

  1.  How is the relationship between the LLBC and Gov. Edwards right now,
  2. Whether cursing “any sitting Governor” should be condoned,
  3. Whether Pierre accepts Gov. Edwards’ contention that his first time to learn of a differing scenario entailing Greene’s death transpired 16 months after his death upon reading our initial feature first exposing the in-custody death of Greene at the hands of LSP (Edwards said the feature contained extensive details of the Greene civil suit, which the just-linked feature, which was the first published feature on Greene’s death, certainly goes into excruciating details of the content of that civil lawsuit), and,
  4. Whether the LLBC would be fully united in any impeachment proceedings entailing Gov. Edwards.

One thing about Rep. Pierre is that he is certainly not long on words!  It only took a mere three (3) minutes for ALL of the above questions to be posed and responded to.  Let’s take a look at his responses:


Pierre responds to Burns’ questions outlined above.

So, judging by Rep. Pierre’s responses, we can only assume that, for now, any hostility displayed in last week’s meeting has subsided and that Edwards is back fully in the good graces of the LLBC.  We’ll see if that holds up if and when the waters ahead become more turbulent than they already are!

CLICK HERE for Rep. Pierre’s BRPC presentation in its entirety.

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Former ATC Commissioner Murphy Painter on Jindal Administration: “We ‘gonna tell you what the law says!”

Former Louisiana Alcohol and Tobacco Control (ATC) Commissioner Murphy Painter who, after almost 15 years on the job and serving through three Governors, was terminated by former Gov. Bobby Jindal on Friday, August 13, 2010.  Painter subsequently faced a Federal trial in mid-December of 2013 entailing 29 counts of allegedly improperly using Louisiana State Police’s criminal database for the issuance of alcohol permits.  Painter was acquitted by a Federal Jury after about six hours of deliberations resulting in taxpayers footing the bill for over $1 million in Federal Government and State Government costs for that prosecution along with another $600,000 to reimburse him for his legal costs in defending the charges brought against him upon his acquittal.

One week ago today (Sunday, January 31, 2022), we kicked off a multi-segment feature of former ATC Commissioner Murphy Painter with this introductory feature.  We indicated at that time that we’d have Painter himself on to provide an opportunity to explain just what all transpired behind the scenes entailing his very public lambasting in the media and the timeframe leading up to and at the initial outset of his criminal trial in December of 2013 (we believe the mainstream media lost all interest in the trial once they saw just what an absolute farce the trial was).

We now present segment one of that feature in which Painter directly contrasts the differences between serving for former Gov. Mike Foster (which Painter did from 1996-2004), former Gov. Kathleen Blanco (which Painter did from 2004-2008) and the early part of the Jindal administration (early 2008 through his termination on Friday, August 13, 2010).  We think our subscribers and site visitors will find his story fascinating, and here’s installment one:


2/1/22:  Painter contrasts working under former Gov. Mike Foster, former Gov. Kathleen Blanco, and former Gov. Bobby Jindal and provides insight into the lead-up to his termination by former Gov. Bobby Jindal on Friday, August 13, 2010.

We believe those who take the time to watch our initial interview with Painter in this first installment will find his commentary quite revealing, and we look forward to delivering segment two in the near future.

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Gov. Edwards’ admission that troopers in Greene arrest engaged in “criminal acts” flies in the face of “complete confidence” in former LSP Col. Kevin Reeves, who called their actions “awful but lawful.”  

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards who, in an angry tone at a press conference on Tuesday, February 1, 2022, repeatedly chastised Associated Press reports regarding his knowledge and/or activities in the aftermath of Ronald Green’s May 10, 2019 death at the hands of Louisiana State Police, even going so far as to characterized those widely-published reports as “inaccurate.”

On October 27, 2020, WBRZ’s Chris Nakamoto aired this feature in which Nakamoto stated that, “last month,” (which would have been September of 2020, and after Sound Off Louisiana first broke this September 10, 2020 feature on the LSP secrecy surrounding Ronald Greene’s arrest), Gov. Edwards expressed total confidence in then-LSP Col. Kevin Reeves.  Let’s take a look at that 21-second segment of Nakamoto’s feature:


21-second segment from Nakamoto feature wherein Edwards expresses “complete confidence” in then-LSP Col. Kevin Reeves.

Going by his press conference yesterday, Edwards stated that he did not learn that Greene’s death was anything different from what Reeves texted to him on May 10, 2019 until he read a feature (we have to believe our feature linked above) that contained significant details about the civil suit filed in Greene’s death.  While we have several sources who inform us that Edwards is not being candid in making that statement, let’s for argument sake give him the benefit of the doubt that he’s being truthful.

Edwards has now stated on multiple occasions, including at yesterday’s press conference, that the troopers engaged in “criminal acts.” Accordingly, how can he possibly justify his emphatic support of Reeves even after he (Edwards)  learned (by his own admission) that Greene’s death was not remotely as Reeves indicated in that text?  In fact, in sharp contrast to Edwards, Reeves made a very public pronouncement that the troopers’ actions were, “awful but lawful.”  When we last checked, “criminal acts” aren’t consistent with “lawful,” so how in the world does Edwards justify the content of the above 21-second video clip?

We want to stress a few other things about Reeves.  First, we reported on the six (6) approvals required for Reeves’ son to obtain a prized detective position long before should have ordinarily been the case.  We openly questioned if Reeves’ promotions of those troopers (in some cases, multiple promotions for the same troopers even in Reeves’ short tenure) were his way of issuing a big “thank you” for approving of his son obtaining the detective position.

Those promotions were awarded prior to Greene’s death, so nobody can argue that the promotions were the result of active participation in the obvious cover-up entailing Greene’s arrest.  For that reason, we still maintain that the promotions were likely a big “thank you” from Reeves for them signing off on his son obtaining the detective position.

On March 4, 2020, mere days after we were initially informed about Greene’s arrest (but long, long before we went public with it as it’s our policy to extensively vet allegations and seek public records to back up claims against troopers or anyone else), we openly called upon Reeves to “resign in disgrace.” See the very end of the feature just linked.  We cited other matters entailing Reeves for calling upon him to resign, but we refrained from mentioning a word about Greene because it was our intent to vet as diligently as we possibly could the allegations of which we were being made aware.

We will point out, however, that it would seem incredibly ironic if Sound Off Louisiana founder Robert Burns could be “in the know” more than the Governor of the State of Louisiana!  We were informed of the development in late February of 2020 and, again, giving Edwards the benefit of the doubt, he has now stated in a very public forum that he didn’t learn of the nature of that death until reading our blog post on September 10, 2020!

After we did publish the September 10, 2020 feature above entailing all the secrecy around Greene’s arrest, however, and as Reeves’ retirement was announced, we felt compelled to publish this feature entailing pay raises for Reeves’ inner circle, some of whom would have a hard time denying any role in a cover-up at this stage of the game, and, unlike the promotions, those pay raises were granted AFTER Greene’s arrest.  Here are those  pay raises (including for Reeves himself approved by Gov. Edwards) replicated at this time:

This request is to grant a 4% salary adjustment for Deputy Secretary/ Colonel Kevin Reeves, increasing his salary from $177,436 to $184,533 annually.

Please grant a salary adjustment of 3% effective 7/1/20 to LTC Jay Oliphant. Annual salary to be $155,275.00.  Approved by Colonel Kevin Reeves.

Next, we have Lt. Col. Robert Adam White (no photo available):

Please grant a salary adjustment of 3% effective 7/1/20 to LTC Robert “Adam” White.  Annual salary to be $155,275.00.
Approved by Colonel Kevin Reeves.

From the response to our public records request above:

Please grant a salary adjustment of 3% effective 7/1/20 to LTC Jason Starnes.  Annual salary to be $155,275.00.  Approved by Colonel Kevin Reeves.

Again, from the previously-linked response to our public records request:

Please grant a salary adjustment of 3% effective 7/1/20 to LTC Robert Brown. Annual salary to be S166, 144.00.  Approved by Colonel Kevin Reeves.

Next we have Lt. Col. Michael Layne Barnum (no photo available).  Again, from the linked public records request response:

Please grant a salary adjustment of 3% effective 7/1/20 to
LTC Michael Layne Barnum. Annual salary to be $155,275.00.
Approved by Colonel Kevin Reeves.

So, we’re going to let our subscribers and site visitors be the judges of the level of Edwards’ truthfulness at yesterday’s press conference, but what we are going to say is that his entire legacy as Governor of Louisiana will be centered on his management and oversight over Louisiana State Police, and we do not believe Louisiana history textbooks will be kind to him in that regard!

If you would like to be added to our Sound Off Louisiana email list to be notified of future posts, simply go to our home page and scroll to the bottom (mobile devices) or to the top of the right-hand column (desktops).  Supply your email address within the subscribe box.  You’ll then receive an automated email from Word Press, and all you have to do is click on the blue “confirm follow” bar contained within that email, and you’ll begin receiving great posts such as the preceding one above.