Former Louisiana State Police Commission (LSPC) Member Calvin Braxton testifies before the House Special Committee Investigating the In-Custody Death of Ronald Greene on Wednesday, May 11, 2022.
As we indicated on Monday, we expected some fireworks from hearings this week entailing holding former Louisiana State Police (LSP) Col. Kevin Reeves in Contempt of the Special Committee investigating Ronald Greene’s in-custody death. That already transpired earlier today.
Meanwhile, former Louisiana State Police Commission (LSPC) member Calvin Braxton gave damning testimony before the Greene Committee. In his testimony, Braxton flatly refutes that Gov. Edwards was not told of the nature of Greene’s death until he saw it published on our breakout feature on Greene’s death, which transpired on September 10, 2020.
We knew at the time that Edwards was being less than candid (a phrase we’ve observed Federal Judges like to use rather than lying) at the time. Nevertheless, our hands were essentially tied about calling him out on the matter because it would have entailed outing one of our most key sources for being able to report upon Greene. With Braxton having gone public today for all the world to see, those handcuffs are no longer around our wrists.
As a result, we can now state that Calvin Braxton (operating through retired LSP Lt. Leon “Bucky” Millet) told us about the Ronald Greene incident in early June of 2020. At the point we were informed, we were also told that Braxton had told Gov. Edwards’ office about the matter. We feel compelled to add that it was Braxton, through Millet, who specifically provided the very specific detail to us that LSP Trooper Chris Hollingsworth had turned off his body camera during that arrest of Ronald Greene.
At the time, we were very naïve in believing that no trooper would escape discipline for intentionally turning off his or her body camera. Obviously, we’ve learned a TON since then and are still learning.
Hence, we made public records request for Hollingsworth’s disciplinary file. When LSP responded and the file contained no discipline for Hollingsworth’s then-alleged act, we did begin to have some doubt because it was simply mindboggling to us that a trooper could knowingly and intentionally deactivate his body camera and face no discipline.
Nevertheless, we had other sources whom we contacted and who were very emphatic that the Hollingsworth accusation entailing the deactivating of the body camera was in fact true. Further, they indicated to us that we should not be startled in the least that Hollingsworth’s file would contain zilch in the form of discipline for him having done so. That still blows us away to this day!
Accordingly, we proceeded with the feature linked above, and the rest is history!
The bottom line is that we owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to Braxton and Millet not only for the firm initial details of the Ronald Greene matter, but it was also Braxton (Millet) who tipped us off about trooper Michael Satcher II.
We have protected Braxton as a key source, but we can now vouch for everything he said in his testimony today as being consistent with what was indicated to Sound Off Louisiana founder Robert Burns way back then.
In fact, after his testimony, Braxton told Burns, who attended the Greene Committee hearing today, “If I’d been asked who was the media outlet that was preparing to run a story on Greene, I was going to tell them ‘you.'” That too would have been the absolute truth!
Here’s Braxton’s testimony in its entirety. We think everyone will be impressed with whom Braxton initially chose to vet what he was told, but we’re requiring the viewing of the video below to find that out:
May 11, 2022: Calvin Braxton testifies before the Greene Oversight Committee.
We feel compelled to make one final observation. Given the now-seemingly-undisputed fact that Edwards was told in “April or early May of 2020” of the nature of Greene’s death, doesn’t it make the following statement by him regarding Reeves days before he retired all the more shocking?:
Gov. Edwards expresses the “utmost of confidence in Kevin Reeves as LSP Colonel” mere days before Reeves opts to retire and long after Braxton indicates that Reeves was summoned to Gov. Edwards’ office on the Ronald Greene death.
We hope former LSP Col. Reeves doesn’t take much of a breather because, as we reported Monday, he faces a second Contempt charge (this one of the LSPC) tomorrow at 9:00 a.m.
Somehow, we think attorney Jill Craft will be in rare form (and that’s saying plenty) tomorrow morning for that hearing!
We do like the fact that Craft is hammering home the inadequacy of LSP fulfilling her subpoena because, as everyone knows by now, we have a May 23, 2022 court hearing of our own entailing what we believe was excessive redacting on LSP records.
We figure, given the attorney we have for that one (Burns – who’s not actually an attorney and is suing pro se), we can’t lose on that hearing! Yes, that’s an obvious joke, but Burns does plan to give it his very best shot before Judge Don Johnson in 12 days!
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.