FBI is investigating alleged abuse in Baton Rouge police warehouse known as the 'Brave Cave'

Earlier DU thread: Louisiana police held detainees in 'torture warehouse,' lawsuits say

Also: Louisiana police accused of ‘unconscionable’ abuse in ‘Brave Cave’ (The Guardian)

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FBI is investigating alleged abuse in Baton Rouge police warehouse known as the ‘Brave Cave’

BY JIM MUSTIAN AND LEA SKENE
Updated 8:32 PM EDT, September 22, 2023

The FBI said Friday it has opened a civil rights investigation into allegations in recent lawsuits that police in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, assaulted drug suspects they detained in an obscure warehouse known as the “Brave Cave.”

In one case, a man says he was taken to the warehouse and beaten so severely he needed hospital care before being booked into jail. In another, a woman claims she was strip-searched, with an officer using a flashlight to scan her body.

Since the first complaint was filed last month, the city’s mayor has ordered the facility closed, the police department has disbanded its street crimes unit and an officer at the center of the allegations — the son of a current deputy chief — resigned and was arrested on a simple battery charge.

FBI officials confirmed Friday that the agency has opened an investigation based on “allegations that members of the department may have abused their authority.”

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Read more: https://apnews.com/article/police-brutality-torture-warehouse-fbi-louisiana-1be2156027566d9462d142894d7a4399

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Source: The Guardian

Louisiana police accused of ‘unconscionable’ abuse in ‘Brave Cave’

Baton Rouge officers allegedly brutalized and disrobed detainees in storage shed once used for anti-street crime unit

Ramon Antonio Vargas in Louisiana
Sat 23 Sep 2023 06.00 BST

Across from an industrial hose and gasket supplier’s office, in a mostly empty and fenced-off lot behind a precinct house belonging to the police department of Louisiana’s capital city, there sits a white storage shed without any markings explaining its purpose.

That single-story warehouse – within a couple of blocks of a daycare center, an eatery specializing in chicken wings and a gasoline station frequented by unwary residents – is now the focus of local and federal authorities examining alarming claims that officers with the Baton Rouge police department (BRPD) took detained people there and brutalized them.

Allegations portraying the warehouse once used by the Baton Rouge Area Violence Elimination, or Brave, anti-street crime unit as a sort of black site or torture chamber are contained in two federal court lawsuits filed relatively recently.

One of the lawsuits maintains that a woman was illegally forced to disrobe and endure a humiliating search of her body. Another contends a man was so badly beaten by officers who took him to their so-called “Brave Cave” that one of his ribs was broken.

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/23/louisiana-police-brave-cave-baton-rouge-warehouse-torture