In Louisiana, a father, a son and a culture of police abuse
MONROE, La. (AP) — Growing up in the piney backwoods of northern Louisiana, where yards were dotted with crosses and the occasional Confederate flag, Jacob Brown was raised on hunting, fishing and dreams of becoming a state trooper.
But within weeks of arriving at the Louisiana State Police training academy in Baton Rouge, instructors pegged Brown as trouble. One wrote that he was an arrogant, chronic rule breaker with “toxic” character traits that should disqualify him from ever joining the state’s elite law enforcement agency.
Fortunately for Brown, the state police was known as a place where who you knew often trumped what you did, and where most introductory chats eventually got around to a simple question: Who’s your daddy?
Jacob Brown is the son of Bob Brown, then part of the state police’s top brass who would rise to second in command despite being reprimanded years earlier for calling Black colleagues the n-word and hanging a Confederate flag in his office. And the son would not only become a “legacy hire” but prove his instructors prophetic by becoming one of the most violent troopers in the state, reserving most of his punches, flashlight strikes and kicks for the Black drivers he pulled over along the soybean and cotton fields near where he grew up.
https://apnews.com/article/business-louisiana-race-and-ethnicity-racial-injustice-baton-rouge-d2d50979a247c400746ba6703225f7ff
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