EBRP Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome seconds before being guided by her handlers (led by former WBRZ reporter Mark Armstrong) away from the Baton Rouge Press Club rather than take a follow-up question by Sound Off Louisiana’s Robert Burns on why the BRPD is steadfastly refusing to release the body cam video of the arrest of former LSP Lt. Prentiss Bellue on July 18, 2022 for alleged DWI.
On July 22, 2024, we published this feature on the BRPD effectuating the arrest of former LSP Lt. Prentiss Bellue (scroll down to the paragraph beginning with, “LSTA events are notorious for heavy drinking”).
On September 17, 2024, we published this feature of the incredibly bizarre proceedings in Baton Rouge City Court entailing Bellue’s arraignment the prior day.
As fate would have it, Bellue somehow deemed it unnecessary to show up for his arraignment; furthermore, Baton Rouge City Prosecutors managed “not to have his file,” even though they seemed to have little difficulty placing their hands on the files of approximately 40 other folk who were scheduled for arraignment that same day.
After a very lengthy proceeding wherein the Judge adjourned court, only to come back minutes later and reconvene court solely and exclusively for the Bellue matter, a bench warrant was issued for Bellue’s arrest for his failure to show up for court. Two days later, however, that bench warrant was recalled.
Bellue’s arraignment has been rescheduled for Thursday, October 24, 2024 at 8:30 a.m. in Courtroom 128. We certainly plan to be there for that arraignment as well.
In the meantime, BRPD is well aware of our desire to obtain the body cam video of Bellue’s arrest; however, we have been stonewalled by BRPD entailing that body cam video. We have published the Department’s response to our public records request for the video, and we are reproducing that July 22, 2024 response at this time:
Good afternoon,
This case is still pending prosecution, therefore all records except the initial report are not subject to release under LSA-R.S. 44:3 at this time.
Sincerely,
Deelee Morris
So, on Monday, October 14, 2024 Belinda Parker Brown posed the question to all candidates for East Baton Rouge Parish (EBRP) Mayor-President of whether they believed the public benefitted from the release of the Ronald Greene video. Upon the candidates supplying their responses, Sound Off Louisiana founder Robert Burns followed up Parker Brown’s question by asking, “then do you feel the public would also benefit from the release of the BRPD’s body cam video for the arrest of Prentiss Bellue?”
We want to first focus on incumbent Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome’s response to both questions, and here’s video of those responses:
Broome responds to the Parker Brown’s question and Burns’ follow-up question.
Given Broome’s emphatic response that, “Our process is to release body camera footage, and I would be in agreement with that,” we call upon her to issue a direct order to the BRPD to immediately release the body cam video(s) of Bellue’s arrest to the public!
The only other comment we’ll make is that we expressed appreciation to debate moderator Jim Engster, who went out of his way to ask Burns during the forum if he desired to pose a question, and then he called upon Burns to pose the question as the very next one.
We will, however, make the following statement regarding Engster’s commentary of, “we don’t need any editorial comment about the video:”
Unless a goodly number of some of our most reliable LSP sources have led us astray about the content of that video (and we seriously doubt that’s the case), Burns’ statements about the contents of the video(s) are not “editorial” in nature but rather statements of fact.
Furthermore, as Burns stated in the video associated with the arraignment video on the feature linked above, we have been told that, “the content of that body cam video is far worse than even what you’ve been told!”
Now, we wanted to confront Broome after the meeting with our camera rolling and call upon her to issue an order directing the release of the video; however, as evidenced by the following brief video, her handlers, led by former WBRZ reporter Mark Armstrong, immediately ushered her out of the facility without Burns being able to call upon Broome to issue an order directing the BRPD to release the video(s). Here’s that video:
After Armstrong instructs Broome of the need to leave, another of her handlers states: “Yeah, we ‘gotta go!” Thereafter, off they went!
At this time, let’s now present the other candidates’ responses to the tandem of questions:
Response to Parker Brown and Burns by candidate Nathaniel Hearn.
Response to Parker Brown and Burns by candidate Ted James.
Response to Parker Brown and Burns by candidate Steve Meyers.
So, how about we get to see just what’s on the video, folks!!
CLICK HERE for the forum in its entirety.