Ex-Cops Charged For Beating Black Men, Tasing Teen Girl In 24-Hour Span

Two now-former Alexandria Police Department officers have been arrested and charged with malfeasance in office following a series of violent encounters with Black men and a teenage girl caught on body camera footage.

According to Altanta Black Star, the incidents involving ex-officers Austin Butler, 38, and Dylan Tritle, 32, unfolded over 24 hours in July 2024. The pair was arrested and booked into the Rapides Parish Detention Center on October 2 following an internal affairs investigation and a two-month probe by Louisiana State Police.

“We had two bad apples. That doesn’t make for a bad tree,” Alexandria Police Chief Chad Gremillion previously said. “We clipped the sour fruit off that tree immediately, and we are here to be transparent about it.”

In one incident, Butler and Tritle responded to a disturbance call at a local extended-stay motel, where a Black man was accused of playing music too loudly. The man complied with the officers' request to leave. However, as he exited with his belongings, the man lightly brushed past an officer, who then abruptly grabbed him, threw him against a wall, and arrested him for alleged battery. The officers also discarded the man's personal items, including a military discharge certificate, in the trash.

“The officers appear to manufacture the scenario,” Mayor Jacques Roy said in a statement. “Nothing warranted what occurred.”

In the second incident, the officers responded to a call at The Stick, a local bar, where a young Black man was asked to leave by staff. After complying and asking for a ride, one officer joked, “I have a dog. Not unless you want to get bit.”

The man then walked toward the patrol vehicle and looked into the back window, presumably at the K-9. Officers sprinted after the man, slammed him to the ground, and began to punch and cuff him, shouting profanities.

“He was enticed into going to that car,” Roy said, describing the encounter as a setup and a pretext for assault.

In a third video, one of the officers used a Taser on a teenage girl at a mental health facility. Officers were responding to a reported riot that had already deesclated when they arrived.

Despite the calm environment, an officer “dry stunned” the teen and then threw her to the floor.

“No one can say this was justified,” Roy said, calling the behavior "violent and unprovoked."

The Rapides Parish District Attorney's Office is handling the case.

“Nowhere in my 30-plus years of law enforcement is this acceptable behavior,” Gremillion said. “Fortunately we caught it when we did.”

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