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:
- How is the relationship between the LLBC and Gov. Edwards right now,
- Whether cursing “any sitting Governor” should be condoned,
- 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,
- 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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