Four officers from a disbanded Street Crimes Unit of the Baton Rouge Police Department have been indicted by a Louisiana grand jury, The Associated Press reports. They face charges for allegedly covering up the beating of a suspect in custody. The charges stem from an attempted strip search in September 2020, when two officers from the Street Crimes Unit allegedly hit a suspect and shocked him with their stun guns; the other two officers helped to cover up the matter. But the incident was captured by body-worn cameras that were activated without the officers realizing it. Earlier that night, police had swarmed an area where a music video was being shot, according to warrants. A suspect was brought to a police precinct to be strip-searched in the bathroom. Documents showed that the suspect was stripped naked and beaten for not complying.
As one of the officers pulled out his Taser, his body-worn camera was immediately activated; the camera was later hidden and never returned, according to an arrest warrant for the offcers. The accused officers later conspired to write a letter, falsely claiming the body camera was missing or lost, the department said. The charges come as the FBI pursues a civil rights investigation into allegations made in lawsuits last year that officers assaulted detainees in an obscure warehouse known as the “ Brave Cave.” Soon after the allegations arose, Mayor Sharon Weston Broome ordered the facility closed and the police department disbanded the Street Crimes Unit.
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