The Baton Rouge Area Violence Elimination (BRAVE) Project was first awarded funding in 2012, supposedly designed to implement community-based violence prevention strategies while targeting 190 Black teenagers.
But in August 2023, Louisiana cops got exposed for using an obscure police facility as a torture site - called the “Brave Cave.”
An attorney of one victim, Jeremy Lee, referred to the interrogation warehouse as a “black site,” after police beat Lee so brutally that East Baton Rouge Parish Prison officials refused to admit him and insisted he get taken to a hospital.
Police claim the Brave Cave is equipped with cameras. But neither Lee's attorney nor the media have any footage. Evidence of Lee’s assault was captured via bodycam instead.
Officers have also caused financial damage alongside the physical and psychological. One, Troy Lawrence Jr., cost the city over $100,000 over multiple brutality lawsuits. The BRAVE project itself cost at least $1.5 million.
From Chicago’s Homan Square to Guantánamo Bay, this isn’t the first time the criminal legal and military systems have similarly used fear to exploit people for information.
As a result, communities continue to distrust police while prisons fill with torture survivors after coercion and misconduct.
And while these torture sites may get exposed and condemned, the message they send remains: that their purpose isn’t justice. It’s cruelty.