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!
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