Mourners gathered in Baton Rouge, Louisiana to memorialize Alton Sterling, a black man who was fatally shot last week by police officers.
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Claire Carter was among those who came to grieve for Mr Sterling inside the basketball arena at Southern University, a historically black college in north Baton Rouge.
“If you want to protest, please leave now”, Gary Chambers, master of ceremonies for the funeral, said at the beginning that the event at Southern University.
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) – Grieving residents of Baton Rouge honored an appeal at the funeral of a black man killed by police to celebrate his life rather than demonstrate about his death. On July 7, as people outraged by police killings took to the street in Dallas, an African-American man opened fired, killing five police officers there. Moore said his office is reviewing the rest of the arrests, which include allegations such as resisting arrest, carrying guns or some “act of violence”. His 15-year-old son, Cameron Sterling, spoke to reporters briefly this week for the first time, telling people his father was a good man while calling for protesters to be peaceful.
The funeral was a celebration of Sterling’s life as much as it was a political declaration. “If the killing of Alton Sterling would have been in a shootout or a drug bust or robbery, we would not be here today”.
Mourners visit the body of Alton Sterling at the F.G. Clark Activity Center in Baton Rouge, La., Friday, July 15, 2016.
Protester Ieshia Evans is detained by law enforcement near the headquarters of the Baton Rouge Police Department in Baton Rouge, La., July 9, 2016.
Video of the police shooting captured startling images of the incident and its aftermath, with blood pouring from Sterling’s chest and his hands empty. But they used deadly force after Sterling reached for a gun in his trousers pocket, it said.
One of the biggest rounds of applause from the crowd of about 2,000 came for Abdullah Muflahi, who owns the Triple S. Mr Muflahi said Mr Sterling was not just a man who sold CDs in front of his store.
Sterling was shot and killed July 5 during an altercation with two white police officers in front of Muflahi’s convenience store. The funeral for Sgt. Michael Krol was held about the same time as Sterling’s on Friday in Plano, Texas.
The shooting sparked protests in Baton Rouge, and, coupled with the shooting death of a man in Minnesota, who was pulled over for a broken tail light and whose death was recorded by his girlfriend, sparked protests in several major cities around the country.
Carl Slaughter, a Baton Rouge resident who has run a community center for 35 years, remembered Sterling as a teenager who spent many hours there after the death of his parents.
A court filing Thursday says Bridgewater told investigators his motivation for the burglary was to sell stolen items.
Reverend Al Sharpton and Reverend Jesse Jackson were among the many speakers at the service. His family has called for the officers to be prosecuted.
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Twenty-year-old Malik Bridgewater is scheduled to make his initial appearance in federal court on Friday.
