Baton Rouge police fatally shoot Black man selling CDs outside of convenience store

11th July 2016   ·   0 Comments

By Mason Harrison
Contributing Writer

Louisiana has largely escaped the national rancor over police shootings of unarmed Black men – that is until the early morning hours of July 5 when video emerged of the shooting death, at point-blank range, of Alton Sterling by two Baton Rouge police officers.

Sterling encountered police after a 911 call was placed after suspicion emerged that he may have been carrying a firearm while standing outside of a convenience store on the city’s south side selling compact discs to passersby. When police arrived, a scuffle ensued resulting in his death as depicted in two widely circulated cell phone videos online.

Sterling, who often sold CDs to generate an income, was described as an “entrepreneur” by Baton Rouge NAACP president, Michael McClanahan, who went on to call for the city’s police chief, Carl Dabadie, Jr., and Mayor Melvin “Kip” Holden to resign. Dabadie has promised a thorough investigation and Holden has vowed that his office will not be party to “a cover-up.” Both officials have indicated they will not leave office.

The shooting has grabbed national headlines and spurred reactions from the governor’s mansion to the White House, with President Barack Obama saying two days after the shooting that the video is “deeply disturbing” and Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards calling for “calm” and urging that protests over the shooting death remain “peaceful.”

Edwards and U.S. Rep. Cedric Richmond, a Democrat whose district includes the city of Baton Rouge, called on President Obama after the shooting to allow the Justice Department to investigate Sterling’s death. Edwards, during a July 6 press conference, said the Justice Department’s civil rights division will lead the federal probe, assisted by the U.S. attorney’s office for the Middle District of Louisiana, Louisiana state police and the FBI.

The shooting occurs amid ongoing tensions between Black Baton Rouge residents and the police department, which has been under a federal microscope for police tactics and hiring practices since the 1980s. The department faced allegations in the months after Hurricane Katrina from officers sent to help from other states of unlawful searches and stops and in 2013, according to The Baton Rouge Advocate, it battled charges that it had not made headway on hiring more minorities and women as federally directed.

McClanahan said the shooting incident is not isolated, but “one of many” in which black men are targeted by police officers “who travel in packs like dogs.” He promised that those representing Sterling’s family intend to “root out the one percent of bad police officers that go around becoming the judge, jury and executioner of innocent people…”

Members of the Nation of Islam in Baton Rouge urged residents to boycott the Mall of Louisiana starting July 8 in response to the shooting. Economic boycotts following other high-profile shootings in recent months have become common across the country.

State Rep. Edmond Jordan, who is also the attorney for the Sterling family, said the Baton Rouge police department took possession of video from the surveillance system at the convenience store where Sterling was shot by placing the store owner in his car and carrying away the video “without a warrant.” Jordan called for releasing the video.

Police officers, according to Abdullah Muflahi who owns the Triple S convenience store, said a warrant had been obtained, but told national media outlets that he was not presented with a warrant and that it was only after Sterling was shot and immobilized that officers produced the gun that reportedly caused the shooting, by pulling it from his pocket.

Muflahi also said online that Sterling’s reasons for being armed were innocuous. He began “carrying a gun a couple of days ago” after friends of his who sell CDs at other stores were robbed. Muflahi said Sterling was suddenly and rapidly approached by the officers without word. “He was confused. He didn’t know what was happening. I believe if they had taken the time to explain to him what was happening then he would still be alive.”

Sterling, along with the department, has been the subject of much scrutiny in the days after the shooting, with media outlets pouring over his police record and related items. In 2000, Sterling was convicted as a sex offender, when at the age of 20, he impregnated his girlfriend, age 14. In more recent years, he faced domestic abuse and weapons charges and has had past scuffles with police officers during an arrest while armed.

“Alton Sterling, regardless of if you knew him or not; he is not what the mass media is making him out to be. This is…to try…to obscure the image of a man simply trying to earn a living,” said Quinyetta McMillon, the mother of three of Sterling’s five children. McMillon’s remarks came at a press conference as she was embraced by their 15-year-old son who began to sob loudly and was led away from the cameras as she spoke.

The floating of Sterling’s criminal record following his death follows a familiar pattern in which residents killed in officer-involved shootings are at times cast in an unfavorable light, used to juxtapose, at best, or counter, at worst, the outcry over police shootings. Yet police departments nationwide defend the practice as a matter of full disclosure in the course of any investigation following the use of deadly force by an officer.

Chief Dabadie, during a separate media event, said the officers involved in the early morning shooting, Blane Salamoni, a four-year veteran of the department, and Howie Lake, who has been with the force for three years, are now both on administrative leave. Dabadie promised a “thorough, just and transparent” investigation into the shooting.

Mayor Holden, while welcoming a federal investigation, defended the police department, at the same media briefing, against “political statements” assailing his city’s officers and calls from outside Baton Rouse for an independent review. “We’ve already been working on that,” said Holden. “It’s not like we need to be hand-held and spoon-fed when it comes down to doing what’s right. …We are doing our best to…get all the answers.”

Holden, who is the first Black mayor of Baton Rouge, received a call following the shooting from Baltimore mayor, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, whose city exploded into violence in the spring of 2015 after the death of a Black man in police custody, Freddie Gray. His arrest was recorded via cell phone and demonstrations, causing thousands of dollars in damage and injuring more than a dozen police officers, marred the city for days.

Dabadie, Holden and others have called for the residents of Baton Rouge to remain calm, with state Rep. C. Denise Marcelle declaring, “This is not Ferguson. This is Baton Rouge, Louisiana,” making reference to Ferguson, Mo., which experienced its own violent street protests in 2014 after the police shooting death of teenager Michael Brown.

Protests have erupted in Baton Rouge with some calling Sterling’s death an act of murder. But others, including the Louisiana Legislative Black Caucus, are calling for restraint. “The LLBC is asking that everyone hold their judgment until we have all of the facts, and, that whatever the facts may bring us; the family gets swift justice and satisfaction,” New Orleans state Sen. Joseph Bouie, Jr., chair of the LLBC, said. “Regrettably, today, is another sad day in the American landscape where there is gun violence…”

Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Caroline Fayard said, in a statement, “my first thoughts and condolences are with Mr. Sterling’s family, especially his children.” Fayard called his death a “time for public displays of unity in our commitment to a full and impartial investigation,” adding, “We must stand firm in our resolve that justice must be served.”

National media attention surrounding officer-involved shootings has increased with the advent of cell phone videos as evidenced by the front-page depiction of Sterling’s dead, blood-stained body on the cover of the July 7 edition of The New York Daily News. The photo shows Sterling on the ground with the caption – His Hands Were Empty.

Such coverage, said FBI director James Comey discourages active police involvement. Last fall, Comey described what he called “the Ferguson effect” on police officers who must now contend with cell phone video that may call into question otherwise justifiable stops and searchers over concerns that officers will be labeled prejudice.

In response to those fears, Gov. Edwards backed, earlier this year, passage of a so-called Blue Lives Matter piece of legislation that punishes violence against a person because of his or her chosen profession, namely law enforcement, as a crime of group bias. The bill adds first responders to the state’s list of hate crime protected classes, usually groups that face discrimination based on their gender, age, race, religion or ethnicity.

McClanahan, however, takes a different view of technology’s effect on the criminal justice system, believing cell phones are shedding light on what black communities have known for decades about police misconduct and are bringing police abuses to the public, saying last week, “Thank God for Apple. Thank God for Google. Thank God for Microsoft.”

This article originally published in the July 11, 2016 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.