This afternoon, civil rights leaders gathered again on the steps of City Hall, and called Baton Rouge a “model city” for dealing with such tragedies – drawing a comparison to the sometimes violent chaos that overtook Ferguson, Mo., after a police officer shot and killed Michael Brown, and Baltimore, Md., after Freddie Grey died in police custody.
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They routinely monitor mobile police scanners for reports of gun deaths.
At a peaceful protest against the shootings of Sterling and Castile on Thursday night, at least one sniper shot 12 police officers, killing five of them, and wounded two citizens. “I do not ever want to have to teach my son to be scared of the police, or tell him that he has to watch his back because the people we are told to trust – the people who “protect and serve” – may not be protecting and serving him because of the color of his skin”.
“If you are someone who can mourn the loss of Mr. Sterling and celebrate what happened in Dallas, you have transformed into the very thing you take issue with”, said McMillon’s lawyer Justin Bamberg. That might reassure protesters distrustful of local authorities’ ability or inclination to investigate their own city’s police force – all the more given that one of the officers in the video is the son of a captain in charge of special operations in the same department. One officer used a stun gun on Sterling, then the other officer tackled Sterling to the ground. “I respect the police too”.
” But he also adds: “Just because we say black lives matter doesn’t mean blue lives don’t matter”.
“She was reminded of Alton’s death”, Reed said.
Officials said a few protestors were arrested after going into the street despite being warned not to do so.
The archbishop, stressing the need to come together “in the midst of anger, fear and frustration”, said the congregation would ask God to console the Castile family and also to “heal the divisions in our community, to guide our public servants in their pursuit of the common good and to satisfy the longings of those who thirst for justice and peace”.
“They’re symptomatic of a broader set of racial disparities that exist in our criminal justice system”, said the U.S. president in the early hours of Friday before the Dallas attack. “He let the officer know that he had a firearm and he was reaching for his wallet and the officer just shot him in his arm”, Reynolds said as she live-streamed the details of Wednesday evening’s shooting on Facebook. “They are not operating as human beings”.
Those safety concerns were also on the mind of Baton Rouge resident Eugene Collins. “We are working to identify this officer so we can better understand the reason he might have done this”, said the emailed statement from Lt. Jonny Dunnam of the Baton Rouge Police Department.
“We wholeheartedly reject the reprehensible acts of violence that were perpetrated against members of the Dallas Police Department”, the statement says.
The protests outside the Triple S convenience store continued despite a tense standoff the night before that saw 30 people arrested. Candle-lit balloons were released into the hot night air nearby in honor of Sterling and protesters waved signs and chanted slogans.
Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards called this a “sad week” for his state and for the nation.
Montgomery said he didn’t want protesters to go to the police station, saying he knows that police are on edge following the Thursday shooting deaths of five officers in Dallas.
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Hundreds of people marched in West Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale as part of the Black Lives Matter movement in demonstrations that ended peacefully.
