Dallas-based reporter Jake Bleiberg, left, and New York-based reporter Jim Mustian pose for a photo at a Monroe, La., coffee shop, Aug. 4, 2021, while reporting on the Louisiana State Police.
AP Photo / Rogelio V. Solis
A theme ran through several of the week’s top AP stories: They shed light on issues fundamental to democracy that no one would have known about without the AP. Nowhere was that theme more evident than in the most recent investigative piece by law enforcement reporters Jim Mustian and Jake Bleiberg, who exclusively obtained body camera video kept secret for more than two years showing a Louisiana State Police trooper pummeling a Black motorist 18 times with a flashlight, an attack the trooper defended as “pain compliance.”
The dramatic footage of the May 2019 beating of Aaron Larry Bowman — who could be heard wailing between blows, “I’m not resisting! I’m not resisting” — was featured with credit to AP on news broadcasts by all three major U.S. networks and in matcher stories by The New York Times, The Washington Post and CNN.
Louisiana state troopers hold down motorist Aaron Larry Bowman during a traffic stop, May 31, 2019, in a still image from Louisiana State Police body camera video obtained by the AP. The graphic video, kept secret for more than two years, shows a trooper pummeling Bowman 18 times with a flashlight, an attack the trooper defended as “pain compliance.”
Louisiana State Police via AP
Louisiana State Police Trooper Jacob Brown is shown in a Dec. 10, 2019 photo provided by the Ouachita Parish Sheriff’s Office. Graphic body camera video, kept secret for more than two years, shows Brown pummeling a Black motorist 18 times with a flashlight.
Ouachita Parish Sheriff’s Office via AP
During an Aug. 5, 2021 interview with The Associated Press at his attorney’s office in Monroe, La., Aaron Larry Bowman shows where he was hit on the head with a flashlight by a Louisiana state trooper during a May 2019 traffic stop.
AP Photo / Rogelio V. Solis
During an Aug. 5, 2021 interview with the AP at his attorney’s office in Monroe, La., Aaron Larry Bowman shows where he was hit on the left arm as he tried to defend against a beating by a Louisiana state trooper during a May 2019 traffic stop.
AP Photo / Rogelio V. Solis
Aaron Larry Bowman holds a facial tissue during an interview at his attorney’s office in Monroe, La., Aug. 5, 2021, as he discusses his injuries resulting from a Louisiana State trooper beating him with a flashlight during a traffic stop in 2019.
AP Photo / Rogelio V. Solis
Attorney Donecia Banks-Miley listens at her office in Monroe, La., Aug. 5, 2021, as her client, Aaron Larry Bowman, describes his beating by a Louisiana State trooper during a May 2019 traffic stop.
AP Photo / Rogelio V. Solis
Aaron Larry Bowman cries during an interview at his attorney’s office in Monroe, La., Aug. 5, 2021, as he discusses his injuries resulting from a Louisiana State trooper beating him with a flashlight during a traffic stop in 2019.
AP Photo / Rogelio V. Solis
The coverage by Mustian and Bleiberg also included exclusively obtained investigative documents on the case and an emotional all-formats interview with Bowman, conducted just a few weeks earlier, in which he recounted the beating that left him with a broken jaw, broken ribs, a broken wrist and a deep gash in his head. The piece was just latest in a series of AP exclusives on the Louisiana State Police that began with stunning coverage of the deadly arrest of Ronald Greene by troopers from the same headquarters. Greene’s arrest was kept under wraps before AP obtained video and published it earlier this year. Federal prosecutors are now examining both cases in a widening investigation into police brutality and potential cover-ups involving both troopers and state police brass.
This week’s story, accompanied by a video package from Stacey Plaisance and photographs by Rogelio Solis, saw strong play online with 225,000 pageviews on AP News and was AP’s most-engaged story of the week with readers.