What did John Bel know and when did he know it?

 It's looking more and more like the Governor deliberately covered up this murder. 

What the governor knew, when he knew it and what he did have become questions in a federal civil rights investigation of the deadly encounter and whether police brass obstructed justice to protect the troopers who arrested Greene.

“The question is: When did he find out the truth?” said Sen. Cleo Fields, a Baton Rouge Democrat who is vice-chair of a legislative committee created last year to dig into complaints of excessive force by state police.

The FBI has questioned people in recent months about Edwards’ awareness of various aspects of the case, according to law enforcement officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the probe. Investigators have focused in part on an influential lawmaker saying the governor downplayed the need for a legislative inquiry.

The governor’s spokesperson said he is not under investigation and neither is any member of his staff.

Edwards kept quiet about the Greene case through his reelection campaign in 2019 and through a summer of protests in 2020 over racial injustice in the wake of George Floyd’s killing. Even after Greene’s family filed a wrongful-death lawsuit that brought attention to the case in late 2020, Edwards declined to characterize the actions of the troopers and refused calls to release their body-camera video, citing his concern for not interfering with the federal investigation.

You may have noticed also that the city of New Orleans is the throes of yet another mass panic over crime stoked by the media and by political leaders who are thrilled as ever to ride the wave of pubic hysteria but have nothing but the same old counterproductive responses to offer.  This week at city council we saw politicians demand  more cops, tougher cops, cops who will stop and frisk you if your car looks a little dirty, cops who will put you in jail for marijuana possession.  The same politicians have also called for an end to consent decree and its requirements that police at least appear as though they mean to act in accordance with the constitution.  Or, failing that, they have called for more policing by entities not bound by that restriction. One councilmember even suggested calling in the National Guard.  The State Police are already here a lot of the time, of course.  

All of this can only increase the danger to New Orleanians.  But it's clear from the statements of the local leaders, and the actions of the Govenor, that none of them actually care about any of that.