BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) - Louisiana State Police are refusing to release video of a trooper who hit a handcuffed man inside a parish jail, despite six months of public records requests from the WAFB I-Team.

Trooper Matthew Clair was initially suspended for 40 hours without pay in 2022 after he struck an inmate at the Avoyelles Parish Detention Center. Clair said the man, who was handcuffed in the front, was charging at him, and he had to stop him.

Discipline reduced under new leadership

Clair appealed his suspension on a technicality, claiming state police didn’t start their investigation within the required 14-day window.

When Colonel Robert Hodges took over the Louisiana State Police in January 2024, he reduced Clair’s discipline to a non-disciplinary “letter of counseling.” This cha

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