I-TEAM: Former officer with history of questionable interactions arrested

BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) - Troy Lawrence, Jr., the former BRPD officer who has a history of questionable interactions with the public, has been arrested and charged with battery, according to a department spokesman.

He has been issued a misdemeanor summons for an incident that occurred on August 8, 2023, around 8:53 p.m. at 6305 Airline Highway.

Baton Rouge Police Detectives reviewed departmental body camera footage that showed a handcuffed subject, as he sat in the rear seat of the patrol car, being dry stunned by a department issued taser without giving the subject an opportunity to comply to verbal commands.

The former officer has been the subject of a number of WAFB I-TEAM investigations and was also part of the unit being looked into that’s been tied to the ongoing Brave Cave probe. He resigned from BRPD after allegations of abuse within the Brave Cave were made public but the arrest is not related to the current Brave Cave investigation.

The WAFB I-TEAM has exposed a history of complaints with Lawrence, Jr., including from his own fellow officers. It was once such complaint recently that caused him to face a termination hearing. Chief Murphy Paul said the officer chose to resign about a week before the date of that termination hearing.

One of the complaints came in July 2021. According to the investigative documents, Officer Lawrence was working extra duty in Tigerland near Fred’s Bar when he got into an argument with one of his supervisors. That supervisor asked Officer Lawrence to put his lights on and move his unit up to block traffic. Officer Lawrence refused to follow those orders.

In a separate complaint last year, Officer Lawrence was working extra duty again in Tigerland when he got into another argument with a supervisor. This time things escalated quickly. An internal affairs report reveals at one point, Officer Lawrence pulled off his vest and threatened to fight the supervisor, even telling him, “Let’s go or meet me behind Mike’s Bar”.

According to the report, several witnesses, including college students were present at the time of the encounter. When the supervisor refused to fight and got into his car, the report shows Officer Lawrence got so mad he called the supervisor derogatory names and twisted the mirror of the supervisor’s unit 180 degrees.

He also cost taxpayers thousands of dollars to settle lawsuits. One of those lawsuits was tied to an encounter with a woman following a fender bender and the other was related to a strip-search and a warrantless search of a home on New Year’s Day 2020.

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