BATON ROUGE - Tuesday, two big developments involving the now-defunct Baton Rouge Police Department's Street Crimes Unit happened in federal and district court. The cases are different, but involve officers from the same unit.

At the 19th JDC, four former "Street Crimes" unit officers were indicted on charges related to an incident where they are accused of beating, tasing, and strip-searching a man in a BRPD building, which is nearby the infamous "BRAVE Cave" It was a non-BRPD building where, investigators say, officers would interrogate and strip search people who were not officially under arrest.

"This has nothing whatsoever to do with the BRAVE Cave," said DA Hillar Moore in a press conference Tuesday. "I know this has been BRAVE Cave related but it is absolutely not. This is a completely isolated incident that happened four years ago."

In federal court, attorney Ryan Thompson argued that the Street Unit's strip-search policy is unconstitutional.

On the stand, BRPD Chief TJ Morse stated the department's policy allows strip searches to be performed on people who are not under arrest, and in very rare cases, without probable cause.

Thompson says he finds it hard to believe the two cases aren't related.

"What you have here is you have the deputy chief Troy Lawrence Sr, who used to be a commander of that unit, you had other individuals who were involved in that unit who are now indicted so for me they are actually connected. I believe that the connections are there and to say they are not connected, I would disagree with that wholeheartedly."

Though the allegations against the four officers indicted Tuesday in district court occurred before the ones from the BRAVE Cave, this case came to light after the BRAVE Cave was uncovered.

"Once those revelations came forward, you had an officer come forth that we now know as a whistleblower to say the same unit or individuals involved in this unit did something in 2020 involving some individuals that were taken to a bathroom, beaten, threatened to be tased and subsequently was the destruction of body-worn camera."

Doug Chutz, Troy Lawrence Sr., And Todd Thomas were indicted on charges of obstruction and malfeasance in office.

Martele Jackson, who has been identified as the whistleblower, was indicted on malfeasance charges. He is expected to be booked sometime next week.