Nearly everyone in h knows the name . He’s the man that h State Police said died in a near Union Parish near Monroe in 2019. Then they were caught in their bald-faced lie when video surfaced showing troopers and a parish deputy beating and tasing Greene as he cried out, “I’m your brother” and “I’m scared.”
, Greene’s mother, got a call from a daughter telling her that Ronnie had died in a car accident, a story they thought was true until the unraveled, unleashing the fire and ire that Hardin continues to exhibit these days.
In the last seven years, Greene’s death has made headlines across the nation and the world as blatant law enforcement misconduct was shown on video for everyone to see. Hardin doesn’t like that phrase. They’re responsible for “my son’s murder,” she told me.
The case has seen federal, legislative, parish and state trooper investigations. Nationally prominent civil rights attorneys Ben Crump and Lee Merritt are handling the case after three sets of family attorneys. The matter has resulted in an apparent trooper suicide death, five law enforcement indictments but no jail time for the officers involved, as and the to little left beyond the stunningly clear evidence that the murdered.
For seven years, this case has haunted Greene’s family. Hardin is the mother of five children, grandmother of nine and great-grandmother of two. She’s been the face of the Greene family, faithfully traveling from her Central Florida home to h to advocate, demonstrate, protest and sit in on every legislative hearing and every courtroom hearing she could. She’s been the glue holding the family together.
Finally, after pushing for justice, the family got a $4.8 million settlement agreement in May — although it’s still tentative, because the h Litigation Subcommittee of the Joint Legislative Committee on the Budget must approve it. The settlement must have approval by the Joint Legislative Committee on the Budget. There are meetings regularly throughout the year to consider legal settlements involving the state.
h caps damages in wrongful death claims at $500,000. The Greene family avoided that cap by filing a federal civil rights claim, which isn’t subject to state limits. That opened the door to a multi-million-dollar jury verdict or settlement. Because a district court ruled that the law enforcement officers could not build a case based on qualified immunity, h attorneys were pushed to go to mediation rather than risk a high, multi-million dollar federal jury verdict. The odds weren’t in their favor that way.
After mediation, Hardin was sent a story reported by this newspaper. Things had changed. There was a settlement.
“I didn’t know anything about it,” she said. “We were supposed to go to trial.”
Hardin was stunned. After years of fighting for justice for Ronnie, Tayla Greene, Ronald Greene’s daughter and Hardin’s granddaughter, had agreed to settle the case and move on.
It wasn’t even close to the numbers that had been discussed if they had ever decided to settle. They were told $28 million. They were told $15 million. Crump settled the George Floyd case for $27 million.
Tayla Greene was always the only Greene family member plaintiff. She couldn’t be reached for comment.
Hardin is deeply disappointed, but the settlement was Tayla Greene’s decision to make. Hardin was never a plaintiff in the case. She was the family face, the family activist, the family voice. But it wasn’t her decision.
It’s not just the money. She had hoped the case as it proceeded would expose what was really going on at Troop F.
“That was our opportunity to uncover everything,” she told me.
She said as much to Crump, Merritt and attorneys from Philadelphia’s McEldrew Purtell Law Firm.
The Philly law firm proudly announced the settlement on social media: “No resolution can undo the loss of Ronald Greene, but this outcome reflects years of persistence by his family in demanding answers and accountability.”
Persistence? Yes.
Resolution? No.
Answers? No.
Accountability? Absolutely not.
It’s not just the system that failed Hardin.
The state of h failed Hardin and her family. But she believes others did, too, including those she thought were on her side.