Ronald Greene cremated before family learned of homicide

MONROE, La. (KNOE) - The mother of a Black man who died in 2019, after what body camera depicts as an extremely violent encounter with police, held her son’s remains during a news conference Thursday. She wanted to make a point.

While holding the remains of her son in a box, Mona Hardin said the coroner limited how much she could see of her son’s body and then rushed her into cremating his remains.

It’s a decision she now regrets.

“Because when we first heard that Ronnie was in a car accident, we thought we’d bring him home,” Hardin said. “We thought that we as a family could rally around him. My son had cancer, we thought cancer would take him away from us. I need to show the intimidation. The fact that I went there to get my son and he was returned to us. The intimidation, the organized crime, the heaviness that these state troopers had falls over to so many entities. The mortuary that had my Ronnie’s body, he wouldn’t allow us to see Ronnie. We saw Ronnie just up to here. I wanted to identify him by his tattoos. We couldn’t see anything, he wouldn’t allow us, regardless of what he said. He told us Ronnie had that “y” incision and I could have cared less. That was my son. I literally begged him. He denied me the right to see my son. They denied me the right to see him taken to a crematorium so I could make sure he was cremated. We weren’t allowed anything. And in the end, I had to leave Louisiana, that hurts me the worst. He was killed there and then he was cremated. When it’s something that was not supposed to happen.

“We were there to bring him back. No one would even embalm him to bring him home. We called around. He told us we had to get Ronnie off of his property because his employees were complaining of the stench and we had to rush -- and this was a week after Ronnie was there--and we were told Ronnie was going to be in another facility where he would be kept in refrigeration and he didn’t do that. We had a time frame to get him off his property and no other funeral home would take my son to embalm him. We were even told that Shreveport coroner’s office, they were full, they couldn’t take my boy. And we were left with cremation, which is what the director of that funeral home was pushing us to do from the very beginning, which is something we did not want to do, because we had a second autopsy done a week after Ronnie was killed,” explained Hardin.

Greene’s mom and the president of the National Bar Association said its time for the governor to step down.

“I’m calling on behalf of the National Bar Association and my capacity as president on Governor John Bel Edwards to resign. He was complicit in the cover-up. His attorney knew and coordinated the cover-up, along with other individuals of Louisiana State Police and they need to be held accountable,” said National Bar Association President Judge Carlos Moore.

And that’s not all. Members of the NAACP, National Bar Association, Monroe attorneys and the whistleblower who was terminated from state police called for the feds to investigate state police.

Greene’s family and advocates want state police to be an example that no one else will follow.

“This is a reminder of what we had to go through. I have to show this. It’s heavy. I want the whole world to see what troopers did to my son,” Hardin said.

Former LSP Trooper Carl Cavalier “lost his career for being a man of integrity” echoed each family member of Green in the news conference.

“Before I spoke out, I could tell they were desperate. Desperately trying to keep this thing swept under the rug and keep it under cover. It’s part of the reason why I came out to the public and put the information out as I received it. I don’t want us to lose sight of the fact that they’re desperate and lose sight of the fact that they’re trying to dodge a consent decree. Which is very much needed. They need oversight. Obviously, they can’t police themselves anymore. The mere fact of them terminating me shows how desperate they are and the reasons behind terminating me,” Cavalier said.

Louisiana NAACP President Michael McClanahan tells me a consent decree would outline a series of corrective steps that LSP would have to make — such as training, promotions, demotions, and body cam protocol. He said failure to comply could require the feds to appoint someone to oversee state police. The NAACP is also calling for the troopers involved to be fired.

Greene’s family also said Cavalier should be reinstated. He was terminated for violating state police policies, including communicating to the media about the case.

Copyright 2022 KNOE. All rights reserved.