3 LA Troopers Charged For Brutal Beating Of Antonio Harris In 2020 Arrest

You can’t reform this!

Source: CYNTHIA HUNTER / Getty

The AP reports state prosecutors charged three White state troopers for the beating of Antonio Harris during a 2020 arrest. Months after Louisville cops killed Breonna Taylor in her bed and a few days before Derek Chauvin savagely suffocated George Floyd, these troopers gave Harris a “whoopin’” they later bragged would give him “nightmares for a long time.”

After a high-speed chase ended near a cornfield in rural Franklin Parish, bodycam videos show that Jacob Brown, Dakota DeMoss and George “Kam” Harper swarmed Harris, who was already face-down on the ground surrendering with his arms and legs spread. In a classic crooked cop move that should be a serious crime, DeMoss allegedly led the attack with a knee strike to his face before turning off his bodycam. Instead of simply cuffing Harris’ hands, they slapped, kneeled on him, and pummeled him with a flashlight. The footage also shows that they dragged Harris by his braids and repeatedly shocked him with a taser.

The post-brutality cover-up started immediately after the arrest like it was business as usual for these LA cops. An internal affairs investigation determined their arrest report was “wholly untrue,” stating that Harris disobeyed orders, tried to fight officers, and attempted to flee before they jumped him with a series of “tactical strikes.”

“They kept saying ‘Stop resisting’ but I was never resisting,” Harris said to investigators. “As soon as they got to me, one of them kneed me in my face. One of them was squeezing my eyes.”

During the attack, Harris spit up blood from possible internal bleeding. For days after the brutal beating, he complained of pain in his stomach and ribs. That’s exactly what these wannabe slave catchers hoped to do. They exchanged over a dozen text messages mocking Harris and laughing at how horribly they beat him.

“He gonna be sore tomorrow for sure,” Brown wrote to his fellow criminal cops in a text. “Warms my heart knowing we could educate that young man.”

Watch the footage of the violent arrest for yourself.

It’s no surprise that Brown, Harper and DeMoss were in a division of bloodthirsty troopers notorious for terrorizing northern Louisiana with police brutality. Beating Black motorists with a flashlight is one of their specialties. Brown was charged with using a flashlight to beat another Black driver 18 times in an unrelated federal case. And yet he was still roaming the streets with a gun and a badge.

DeMoss was investigated for his role in the death of Ronald Greene, who was beaten to death with a flashlight during a 2019 traffic stop. Another trooper bragged that he “beat the ever-living f**k” out of Greene minutes after he died at the scene and then blamed the injuries on a car crash. There are at least a dozen other instances of police brutality that the AP determined were cover-ups.

The system is so corrupt that Brown, Harper and DeMoss were only charged with misdemeanor battery, which carries a $1000 fine and a sentence of six months in jail in Louisiana. State police arrested the three crooked pigs for felony misconduct in office, but local prosecutors dropped the charges. DeMoss and Harper were fired, and Brown resigned. Federal prosecutors are investigating the troopers for excessive force and violating Harris’ civil rights, but it is still unclear if the U.S. Justice Department will charge them. These rotten apples are proof that the whole damn system is guilty and festering with corruption.