I-TEAM: Attorneys granted access to tour Brave Cave facility amid ongoing internal, FBI probe
BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) - A federal judge has granted attorneys at the center of the abuse allegations that have poured out of the Brave Cave access to tour the facility. That tour is expected to happen Friday, March 22, 2024.
This comes months after a judge ruled that the secretive Baton Rouge Police Department facility be kept in its current condition to preserve any evidence of wrongdoing tied to allegations in the more than a dozen complaints that have been filed related to alleged police misconduct and illegal strip searches inside the building.
The WAFB I-TEAM uncovered the allegations of abuse that were carried out inside the facility back in August 2023 and has followed up with a number of other complaints that followed. The initial case involved the alleged beating of Jeremy Lee inside the facility in January 2023. Amid WAFB’s reporting into the Brave Cave, the mayor ordered the facility to be permanently shut down, the Street Crimes Unit to be disbanded and for the chief at the time, Murphy Paul, to launch a criminal and internal investigation into the facility and alleged abuses there. In addition, the FBI formally launched its own probe into the facility and the Baton Rouge Police Department.
Attorneys connected to the case have questioned the transparency involved in these cases despite the department saying publicly that there are a number of cameras inside the facility and that the space had been used as a processing center for some time. Attorney Ryan Thompson recently raised concerns about the lack of video in many of the instances where he says his clients were taken to the Brave Cave.
“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. “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?”
Current BRPD 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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