Leonard Brown was a 20-year-old student at Southern University in Baton Rouge when he was killed by a single shotgun blast on November 16, 1972. The shooting occurred during a campus confrontation between student protesters and law enforcement; deputies and state police had been deployed to disperse hundreds of students after a pre-dawn arrest of four student leaders. Brown was struck and killed instantly; another student, Denver Smith, was also hit and died shortly afterward at a hospital.

Multiple agencies, including the FBI and the state attorney general’s office, investigated. A state commission concluded the fatal shot came from the area where sheriff’s deputies were positioned, and investigators narrowed potential shooters to a small group of deputies. Despite that, a state grand jury in 1973 and a federal grand jury in 1974 returned no indictments, and no one has ever been charged. The deaths remain officially unsolved.

Did anyone on campus that day or anyone with information about the deputies present come forward or keep records that could shed further light on what happened?