Four Baton Rouge police officers were criminally charged Tuesday after one of them allegedly beat a suspect and the others allegedlytried to cover it up or did not report it, District Attorney Hillar Moore said.
A grand jury charged officers Douglas Chutz Jr., Todd Thomas and Troy Lawrence Sr. with criminal conspiracy to commit obstruction of justice and malfeasance in office. Chutz Jr. and Thomas were also charged with obstruction of justice.
Martele Jackson, whose attorneys say reported the other officers' behavior, was charged with obstruction of justice and malfeasance in office.
If any of the officers are convicted of malfeasance in office, they will be prohibited from becoming a law enforcement officer again in the state of Louisiana.
The grand jury pretermitted officer Jesse Barcelona on counts of obstruction of justice and malfeasance in office. That means the grand jury could not agree on whether to charge him, and prosecutors could bring up the charges again.
"The grand jury indictments of the officers following their arrests last fall underscores our unwavering commitment to uphold the principles of justice and integrity in our community," Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome said in a statement. "These indictments reaffirm our dedication to police reform and accountability. The indictments should not reflect on the vast majority of Baton Rouge police officers who are committed to professionalism."
Baton Rouge Police Chief Thomas Morse Jr. said in a statement Tuesday that the officers will continue to be subjects of the department's internal affairs investigation.
"Keeping with our commitment to increased transparency, the results of those internal affairs investigations will be communicated to the public upon the conclusion," Morse said. "All five officers will remain on administrative leave until that time when due process has been completed in accordance with state law."
The charges stem from a 2020 confrontation afterpolice swarmed a music video being shot by Baton Rouge rap star NBA Youngboy near an abandoned lot in the 3800 block of Chippewa Street, according to warrants.
The 24-year-old rapper, whose real name is Kentrell Gaulden, was rounded up along with 15 others on the afternoon of Sept. 28, 2020. Officers said they found and seized several guns and arrested more than a dozen people from the shoot.
Then-Baton Rouge Police Chief Murphy Paul said in September 2023 that the officers attempted to do a strip-search on a suspect from the shoot inside a bathroom at the department's First District Precinct on Plank Road, using a Taser in an attempt to make him comply.
According to arrest records, a BRPD officer told investigators the suspect had begun to scream, prompting additional officers to enter the bathroom — including Lawrence Sr.
Lawrence Sr. told the suspect, “You see this guy here, he is about to knock the f*** out of you,” the warrant stated.
The use of a Taser unknowingly activated the officers' body cameras, Paul said, which captured one of the officers striking the suspect, causing a package to fall from his “anal area” that officers believed to be synthetic marijuana. But the arrest warrant for the officers said the camera was later hidden and never returned.
The accused officers later conspired to write a letter, falsely claiming the body camera was missing or lost, the department said.
Lawrence Sr., Barcelona, Thomas and Chutz Jr. were arrested in September and October 2023.
The four officers were members of the department's now-shuttered Street Crimes Unit. Lawrence Sr. was commander of the unit at the time of the September 2020 incident and was later promoted to deputy chief.
Broome disbanded the Street Crimes Unit in August 2023, also shutting down a narcotics interrogation center in an unmarked warehouse facility that some officers referred to as the “BRAVE Cave.”
Moore said Tuesday that the September 2020 incident is "isolated" and unrelated to other "BRAVE Cave" lawsuits.
Thomas is the only officer whose charges stem from him hitting the suspect, indictment documents show. The other officers' charges are from covering up evidence and not reporting the incident, Moore said.
"It's not going to be handled any differently because they were Baton Rouge police officers," Moore said.
BRPD's policy on strip searches has been scrutinized since a series of federal lawsuits last year accused officers of detaining suspects and taking them to the BRAVE Cave.
Civil rights attorneys representing plaintiffs in two of the cases have insisted the department’s policy violates the U.S. Constitution because it allows officers to strip search non-arrested detainees without probable cause. City-parish leaders say reasonable suspicion that someone may be concealing drugs, a weapon or other contraband is all that’s necessary to warrant searches more intrusive than a pat-down frisk.
In legal terms, reasonable suspicion is a lower threshold that materializes when it appears that a crime may have occurred. Probable cause requires clear evidence that a crime has likely been committed.
The dueling arguments came to a head Tuesday during a hearing inside the U.S. Middle District Courthouse in downtown Baton Rouge. Attorneys in the federal lawsuit argued for an injunction to limit BRPD from strip searching suspects in police custody who haven’t been arrested if no probable cause exists for the search.
U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick, the Middle District’s chief judge, listened to the arguments Tuesday and will make a ruling at a later date.
