Louisiana State Police has agreed to pay $4.8 million to the daughter of Ronald Greene — the Black motorist beaten to death by five white troopers during a 2019 traffic stop near Monroe — according to two people with direct knowledge of the lawsuit who spoke to the Associated Press. The Union Parish Sheriff's Office will pay an additional $50,000 to the family, bringing the total to $4.85 million, according to AP. The mediation agreement was reached on Tuesday, May 12. It remains subject to approval by the Louisiana Legislature. Louisiana State Police spokesperson Capt. Russell Graham told the AP his agency could not comment because the process 'has not yet been finalized.' Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill confirmed the agreement on Wednesday, saying: 'The State agreed that it was time to end this litigation, which arose under the prior administration, and put this matter behind us.'
The settlement arrives nearly seven years to the day after Ronald Greene, 49, died just after midnight on May 10, 2019. In the immediate aftermath, Louisiana State Police told his family he had been killed when his car struck a tree during a high-speed chase. That account stood for two years. In 2021, the AP obtained body camera footage that told an entirely different story. The video showed that Greene was alive and apologizing to troopers when he exited his vehicle. What followed, on camera, was a prolonged assault: troopers placed Greene in a chokehold, punched him, used stun guns on him, and dragged him facedown across the pavement with his wrists cuffed and his legs shackled. He was left lying on the ground without medical aid for more than nine minutes while officers washed blood from their own hands and faces. Greene died before he reached the hospital.
A Cover-Up That Unraveled Over Years
Hours after Greene's death, then-State Police Superintendent Kevin Reeves notified Governor John Bel Edwards that a man had died following a 'violent and lengthy struggle' with troopers — a characterization that stopped well short of what the footage showed. Greene's family subsequently filed a federal wrongful death lawsuit, accusing troopers and state officials of using excessive force and then deliberately misleading the family and the public. The fallout from the AP's 2021 video report led to the removal of Colonel Reeves and his entire command staff. Greene's mother, Mona Hardin, said in an interview last year: 'We were told Ronnie was killed in a car wreck. The cover up, the lies... they rewarded these killer cops. Those complicit in the lies and the coverup of my son — I hope you never have a good night's sleep.' Hardin has said she will never stop fighting for her son.
In 2022, a grand jury indicted four Louisiana state troopers and a Union Parish sheriff's deputy on state felony charges, including negligent homicide. Most of those prosecutions ultimately collapsed. Only two of the officers pleaded no contest, and only to misdemeanor battery charges. In January 2025, in the final days of the Biden administration, federal prosecutors announced they would not bring federal charges against the troopers involved. That same month, the Justice Department concluded that Louisiana State Police had engaged in a statewide pattern of excessive force during arrests and vehicle pursuits. Within months, the DOJ under President Donald Trump rescinded those findings, formally ending the federal oversight inquiry.
Settlement Without Individual Accountability
Legal analyst Franz Borghardt, speaking to Louisiana Radio Network, noted that while the settlement offers the family a measure of closure, it does not reach the individual troopers. 'It gives the family closure. It resolves the case,' Borghardt said. 'In terms of accountability, it's not going to really hold the actual individual troopers accountable because they're not the ones paying the money.' He described the outcome as the best available resolution given the circumstances, though he acknowledged the figure would read differently depending on which side of the case you occupied. None of the five troopers present that night face pending criminal charges.
The $4.8 million judgment against Louisiana State Police is paid to Greene's daughter; the additional $50,000 from the Union Parish Sheriff's Office goes to the broader family. Both payments are pending final legislative sign-off in Baton Rouge. Mona Hardin's position has not changed. 'Someone needs to pay, in whatever way,' she told reporters. 'Justice needs to be done and the state of Louisiana — this was wrong. The cover-up, the lies on so many levels.' The settlement closes the civil chapter of a case that exposed, in the words of KNOE News, 'individuals at the highest levels of government and what they knew' — but it leaves the question of criminal accountability for the officers themselves permanently unresolved.
