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Second-in-command at State Police refuses to answer lawmakers' questions, lies to them under oath
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BATON ROUGE - The second-in-command at Louisiana State Police lied to committee members under oath Tuesday as they were searching for the truth behind the cover-up of Ronald Greene's death.
During the hearing, Lt. Colonel Doug Cain was asked about another investigation involving Trooper August Mckay. Mckay was exposed by the WBRZ Investigative Unit in 2020 for calling his colleague the n-word and State Police did not discipline him for it.
Cain called the WBRZ Investigative Unit on Aug. 19, 2020 asking that WBRZ not air the story. His request was clear and was heard by other members of the WBRZ Investigative Unit team.
Cain asked, if WBRZ had to do the story, that we didn't use McKay's picture because he was part of a federal drug task force. WBRZ did not comply. In fact, The Investigative Unit aired the story, showed Mckay's photo and mentioned that a top State Police leader asked us not to do the story.
During a grilling with committee members Tuesday, Cain lied about it.
"It was reported that you did not want him [Nakamoto] to run a story on August McKay, correct?" Representative Edmond Jordan asked Cain.
"That's inaccurate," Cain responded. "It was reported, but it was inaccurate."
During the hearing, Cain was told repeatedly to tell the truth.
"If we trusted you, we wouldn't be here right now," Chairman Tanner Magee told Cain.
The purpose of the hearing Tuesday was to get to the bottom of the cover-up involving Greene's death. Greene died in May of 2019 after a police chase in Monroe. Body camera videos were hidden from the public and mislabeled in the aftermath of his death. State Police have said they believe Greene died from injuries he sustained in a car crash, despite body camera videos showing he was brutally beaten.
Cain told investigators he was placed under an internal affairs investigation for getting his phone wiped clean amid a state and federal investigation into Greene's death. Lawmakers demanded to know why Cain is still working while he's under investigation.
The employee who sanitized the phones, Triet Le, told the committee that internal affairs collected the phones from him Monday night, a day before the hearing. Legislators said it was very suspicious that happened on the eve that Cain was set to testify.
"Why did you have the phone sanitized," Representative Debbie Villio asked Cain.
"I can't speak to that ma'am," Cain responded. "I notified the chairman there is an internal investigation to insure transparency."
"This is the opposite of transparency," Chairman Tanner Magee interjected. "...Conveniently, you conduct an investigation and say you can't talk about it on the eve of the hearing. Do you see how that looks?"
"I don't know how it looks, sir," Cain told Magee.
State Police Colonel Lamar Davis told lawmakers Cain was allowed to continue working because he is not a threat to public safety.
A number of others also testified about the cover-ups tied to the Greene case including Albert Paxton, who said he was harassed after speaking out. After hours worth of testimony, lawmakers told him he was "wholly believable."
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