I-TEAM: Attorney questions transparency as BRPD launches probe into sexual assault claims

BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) - As the Baton Rouge Police Department is forced to launch yet another investigation into alleged police misconduct, they vow to be fully transparent in whatever they find after a mother and her three boys have come forward saying they were all strip searched inside the infamous Brave Cave, a secretive facility where some members of BRPD are accused of beating and assaulting people in their custody.

The latest internal probe comes less than 24 hours after the WAFB I-TEAM exposed the new allegations tied to a newly filed federal lawsuit and Internal Affairs complaint.

RELATED: I-TEAM: BRPD responds to new allegations of child sexual assault in Brave Cave

After officers with BRPD SWAT and the now disbanded Street Crimes Unit showed up to search a home on Aster Street for Glock switches and guns back in June 2023, at one point, body camera video shows two of the boys they’ve taken into custody accuse officers of hitting them.

”I’ll cooperate with you, but you hit me in my face three f**king times,” one boy said.

”Tell my mama how your officer hit me in my mouth. That’s illegal. That’s illegal,” another boy said.

Part of the complaint focuses on what can be seen in the body camera videos from the encounter, but part of it also calls out what cannot be seen in the video.

Body camera video shows a large presence of law enforcement on scene during the raid. Attorney Ryan Thompson says it’s easily more than a dozen officers on scene, but when he requested video from the encounter, he says what he got was disappointing.

”Of the ten-plus officers who were out there that day, I counted upwards of 20, but I only received body cam footage from only about five,” said Thompson. “If all of those officers were on scene, and they all had body camera on scene, where is the footage?”

Officers did find several guns inside the home, including one they say was stolen. Hours after they searched the home, the federal lawsuit alleges the mother and her three boys were all taken to the Brave Cave, where they were separated and strip-searched.

On the way to the facility, one officer can be seen reaching for his body camera before it abruptly goes dark. Thompson calls it a disturbing pattern.

”Once he got to the Brave Cave you can see that, as normal, the body-worn camera goes off, the dash cam goes off and what happens inside the Brave Cave is something I never thought I would hear from an 11-year-old,” said Thompson.

While the cameras were turned off, Thompson says his clients were forced to strip naked and undergo body cavity searches. The 15-year-old boy was allegedly knocked unconscious by a high-ranking officer, and his 11-year-old brother claims he was sexually assaulted.

”I won’t go into too much detail because I don’t want to get too explicit, but the allegation is that a sexual assault occurred,” said Thompson. “There was a strip search that was performed and there was a body cavity search that was performed, as well, and one of the allegations is that his private parts were touched and or held.”

This is the latest in more than a dozen complaints that have poured out of the Brave Cave since the WAFB I-TEAM first blew the lid off alleged abuse and cover-up inside the secretive warehouse — but like many of those complaints, Thompson says in this case, there is not a single frame of video to prove or disprove the claims. He believes that’s by design.

WAFB’s Scottie Hunter asked Thompson if he thought that was intentional.

”I do. You have one act where you may say, okay you get a little bit of wiggle room and some leeway, but when it happens repeatedly and over and over again, it’s definitely intentional,” said Thompson. “This unit has a problem, and this is a pattern of behavior. This is a custom of the Baton Rouge Police Department, and it needs to be stopped.”

In order to deliver true transparency, Thompson believes BRPD has to do a better job of making sure body cameras are not turned off, muted or withheld — especially during critical encounters.

”It defeats the purpose, Scottie, for us to make all of this hoopla about transparency and spending the money on body-worn cameras to ensure transparency and protect the officers as well as the public, and then when we go to look for it to confirm or deny what it is that happened, there is none,” said Thompson.

As BRPD wades through more than a dozen complaints and a criminal investigation, plus as the FBI continues its probe into the facility and officers that may have taken things too far there, Thompson also says the public deserves to see whatever videos exist from inside the Brave Cave.

”If you recall, the department stated that there is footage inside of the now infamous Brave Cave,” said Thompson. “Where is it? If you’re right in what you’re doing, and you believe in transparency, where is the video? Why does it always seem to not be any video when these allegations are being alleged against the police?”

Chief Thomas Morse, Jr. did tell the WAFB I-TEAM that there were about nine cameras inside the Brave Cave. He is unsure how far back the recordings go, but like with many businesses with surveillance cameras, the cameras record for a while and then overwrite for storage purposes.

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