No charges for 2016 killing in Louisiana
TWO BATON ROUGE cops will not be charged with the July 2016 killing of Alton Sterling outside a convenience store that provoked outrage and nationwide protests, the state’s top prosecutor said Tuesday.
“This decision was not taken lightly,” Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry announced. “We came to this conclusion after countless hours of reviewing the evidence.”
Sterling’s grieving loved ones were enraged after Landry privately told them officers Blane Salamoni and Howie Lake II would not face state charges.
“Shame on you, Blane Salamoni,” said Sharon Sterling, the victim’s wheelchair-bound aunt who suffered a stroke after the shooting.
“Shame on you for killing Alton Sterling the way you did,” she said.
“You made a decision that night and it was bad one.”
The state investigation suggests Sterling was on drugs as he forcefully resisted arrest nearly two years ago, something his relatives vehemently denied.
Sterling’s family accused Landry of making him out to be a “monster,” while their attorneys called his conclusion a “biased” report.
The AG’s office said Salamoni (photo right) and Lake (photo left) were trying to make a “lawful arrest” when they approached Sterling on July 5, 2016. They were called to a Triple S Food Mart in Baton Rouge just after midnight, where someone said a man was outside with a handgun. Surveillance footage, which authorities have refused to release, showed Sterling threatening a man with a gun in his right pocket, the AG’s report said.
When the cops arrived, they told Sterling to put his hands on a car while he was in the middle of selling bootleg CDs to women outside the store.
Sterling was shot after he resisted arrest, cops say.
Baton Rouge Mayor Sharon Weston Broome said Landry’s report is “not the last word,” vowing that the city would now investigate the shooting.
Salamoni and Lake dodged federal civil rights charges in May 2017, when Justice Department investigators said cops didn’t break any rules.
Sterling’s death in 2016, which came a day before the police shooting of Philando Castile in Minneapolis, set off protests in which nearly 200 people were arrested.