No amount of money can equal justice. But $4.8 million is about as close as the family of Ronald Greene is likely to get.
That’s the amount his as part of a wrongful death settlement that’s coming almost exactly seven years since Green, a 49-year old Black man, was dragged from his car, beaten and taunted by a handful of White police officers alongside a rural north Louisiana road as he shouted “I’m scared” and “I’m your brother.”
Green initially fled when the officers tried to pull him over for an undisclosed traffic stop in May 2019. But then he stopped running and tried to surrender.
That didn’t matter to the officers who rushed his car, hit him twice with a stun gun, put him in a chokehold, punched him in the face, beat him with a flashlight and dragged him, face down, by his ankles across the pavement while he was cuffed and shackled.
One of the officers present — there were five Louisiana State Police troopers and one Union Parish Sheriff’s Deputy — could be heard on the footage saying “That s*** hurts, doesn’t it?” to a bloodied, battered and cuffed Greene.
Troopers later told his family from injuries sustained in a car accident after a car chase, an explanation so implausible that the emergency room physician who saw Greene when he was brought to the hospital didn’t buy it, writing “does not add up” in his notes.
Nevertheless, State Police brass publicly maintained that fiction for two years until The Associated Press obtained and from the stop, revealing publicly the horror that transpired on that road.
Even after state and federal investigations, the four troopers (one died in a car crash before the investigation was completed) and one Union Parish sheriff’s deputy largely escaped criminal sanctions. The federal investigation ended with no indictments, and most charges in state court were either tossed or reduced.
In the end, one trooper and a Union Parish Sheriff’s deputy ended up pleading guilty to misdemeanor battery counts in Greene’s death. behind bars for killing Greene.
A broader federal investigation concluded in January 2025 that the Louisiana State Police had a pattern of using excessive force, but those findings were later rescinded by the Trump administration.
Now the Louisiana State Police has agreed to pay nearly $5 million to Greene’s family to settle a federal lawsuit over his death. The settlement is the closest the Louisiana State Police will ever come — and the Greene family will ever get — to an admission of guilt.
Obviously, it’s not enough. Not enough to undo the night of horrific violence that Ronald Greene endured. Not enough to undo the years of lies and obstruction the agency fed his family. Not enough to achieve a facsimile of justice.
And given that the State Police has a nine-figure budget, the pain of the settlement won’t be that bad. Not as bad as Ronald Greene got that night, and not as bad as his family has felt for the last seven years.