By james art BATON ROUGE – Following the allegations about the BRPD’s Street Crimes Unit and the incidents that continued inside the so-called The BRAVE Cave came to light there was nearly 10 separate lawsuits filed against the department.
“I believe we’re just scratching the surface with street crime as far as I’m concerned and I believe more will come out as we go along,” said attorney Ryan Thompson.
Thompson is handling four cases involving the Street Crimes Unit.
“I tried to represent a whole range of people to show that the Baton Rouge Police Department, specifically the Street Crimes Unit, doesn’t care if you’re a minor, if you’re 16, 20, if you’re a grandmother or if you were A 16-year-old pregnant black girl.”
One of his cases is related to the search of an 11-year-old boy, a case this is already in court.
another is about old claims that were simple recently proven by body camera footage, according to Thompson. Both of them involve the same family and the same employee.
According to documents obtained by the investigative division, before the incident with the 11-year-old, but during the home invasion of the family, Cpl. Joseph Carboni hit a 15-year-old boy with his Taser while the boy was handcuffed in the back of a police station.
While on the ward, the boy was generally uncooperative and kicked the door.
“For whatever reason, Officer Carboni decides he’s going to ‘fix’ this 15-year-old kid or ‘let him ride’ … What that means, you’ve got to ask him or the department,” Thompson said.
Carboni warned the child that he would hit him repeatedly, but instead shocked him with the taser.
After an internal investigation, he was suspended for five days for temper tantrums, disorderly conduct and use of force.
Thompson thinks the suspension isn’t enough.
“The department has already determined that an officer violated use of force rules against a handcuffed 15-year-old, that someone was struck in the face with a deadly weapon. I mean, what are we waiting for here? Are we waiting for this to happen again?”
According to BRPD, the internal investigation into the strip search allegations is still ongoing. However, a federal judge ruled that their strip search policy was unconstitutional in July.