A special committee is being created by the Louisiana Senate that will hold one or more hearings beginning in December on complaints about the use of excessive force by State Police, particularly high-profile instances involving the beatings of Black men.
“The goal is to see if there are areas that either have problems or can be improved as far as an oversight when there are allegations of excessive force,” said Senator Franklin Foil chair of the advisory panel.
Foil says state police, the public, and others will be invited to comment before the seven-member committee that will make recommendations to the legislature regarding the use of force laws.
Foil says this Senate Select Committee on State Police Oversight will be looking for input from a variety of people with the goal of making recommendations to the full Senate by October 31, 2022.
He says, “We’ll certainly invite the state police and other law enforcement organizations but we’ll also invite the public to come speak, so anyone who has an interest will have an opportunity; we will do this in an open committee process at the State Capitol.”
At this point, Senator Foil doesn’t know just how many times the committee will meet. He says, “I’m not sure yet how many meetings we’ll have. I assume we’ll have more than one to gather the information and come up with any recommendations.”