On Aug. 2, federal jury officials in Louisiana handed down a not guilty verdict to 33-year-old Jacob Brown, a Louisiana trooper who was charged with beating a Black motorist with a flashlight.
According to the Associated Press, jurors deliberated for over three days in Monroe, Louisiana, before they acquitted Brown for the 2019 beating of Aaron Bowman.
In May 2019, the white state trooper pummeled Bowman with a flashlight after deputies pulled the Black motorist over for “improper lane usage.” Brown was called to the scene when deputies forcibly removed Bowman from his vehicle and slammed him to the ground.
The Louisiana native was in the driveway of his Monroe home when the incident happened. According to bodycam footage and police records, Brown hit Bowman 18 times with a flashlight for 24 seconds during the vicious traffic stop. The incident left Bowman with a broken jaw, broken ribs and a gash to his head.
“I’m not resisting! I’m not resisting!” Bowman could be heard shouting in the startling footage.
Brown later claimed that he was using a form of “pain compliance” to subdue Bowman. The disgraced trooper would have faced up to a decade in federal prison if he was convicted. Scott Wolleson, a defense attorney for the embattled state trooper, said he was pleased with the verdict.
“The men and women of the jury recognized the risks law enforcement officers like Jacob Brown face on our behalf every day,” Wolleson told the Associated Press.
Aaron Bowman’s attorney, Ron Haley, was disappointed by the jury’s decision. He said that the verdict was a prime example of how “hard” it is “to prove a civil rights violation in federal court.” Haley added that the vicious beating “fundamentally changed” Bowman’s life. “He was low-hanging fruit for Jacob Brown,” he said.
Monroe officials were not quick to investigate Aaron Bowman’s beating.
As previously reported, State police did not investigate the attack until 536 days after the incident occurred. The cast was thrown into the spotlight with Bowman slammed officials with a civil lawsuit.
According to investigators, Brown failed to report the vicious encounter as a use-of-force incident. Prosecutors also discovered that the trooper “intentionally mislabeled” his body camera footage. investigators called the egregious act “an intentional attempt to hide the video from any administrative review.”
Brown’s police record was already smudged before the verdict. The Associated Press found that the Louisiana trooper was “involved in 23 use-of-force incidents between 2015 and his 2021 resignation — 19 of which targeted Black people.”
He is also facing charges for the violent arrest of Antonio Harris, a Black motorist that he bragged about beating in a group chat with other state troopers.
According to the report, Brown is the son of Bob Brown, “a longtime trooper who oversaw statewide criminal investigations” before he retired. His father was also the agency’s chief of staff. During his tenure, Bob Brown was reportedly reprimanded for calling one of his Black colleagues the n-word and hanging a Confederate flag in his office.
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