Sterling, known locally as the “CD Man,” frequently sold music and DVDs outside Triple S Food Mart with permission from owner Abdullah Muflahi, according to CNN.
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The store’s owner Abdul Muflahi told local press that the two officers showed up, and an altercation broke out between the two officers and Sterling.
The second video emerged on a day in which Baton Rouge and Louisiana officials said the investigation into Sterling’s shooting would be led by federal authorities.
Several hundred people gathered on Wednesday for a prayer vigil near the spot where Sterling was fatally shot, with speakers calling for peaceful protests, justice and unity in the face of “excessive force” by police against black residents.
While the initial report alleged that Sterling threatened a person with his gun, Muflahi told the Daily Beast that Sterling was not the one causing trouble and that he had been a welcome presence at the store’s parking lot for years.
Someone yells “he’s got a gun!”.
Federal civil rights investigators will probe the fatal police shooting of a black father of five in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, officials said yesterday, as the U.S. city’s mayor and police chief faced down calls to resign.
Officers at the time were wearing body cameras but they became dislodged during the fight with Sterling. Why haven’t they released that video?
“I thought I was just going to wake up from a nightmare”, Muflahi said of the ordeal.
The officers were responding to a call about a black man reported to have made threats with a gun, Dabadie said. Sterling’s 15-year-old son, his oldest, was hysterical, and family members had to take him away from the podium.
A graphic cell phone video of the shooting, apparently recorded by a witness inside a nearby auto, was shared widely on social media.
The U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division is leading an investigation into what happened. “When you hear, ‘He’s got a gun, ‘ if the other officer now uses deadly force, it’s because he believes that that gun is in the hand or is attempting to be put in the hand of the suspect”.
Reed said he doesn’t post any videos without first seeking permission from shooting victims’ relatives. One of the officers is then seen holding a gun at Sterling’s chest at almost point-blank range. “Like you, there is a lot that we do not understand, and at this point, like you, I am demanding answers”, Dabadie said.
Sharida Sterling, also interviewed by phone, said that if she couldn’t give him a ride to the convenience store, Alton Sterling would take a bus, carrying a folding table and chair and the box of CDs.
Throughout the country anger has erupted after a fatal officer-involved shooting in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Marcelle said. “He could have turned the other way like some of us do when we see a crime and say he didn’t see anything, but he didn’t do that”. The crowd then passed lit candles around to hold up in a moment of silence for Sterling.
Police identified the officers involved in the shooting as Blane Salamoni and Howie Lake II. Mike McClanahan, the leader of the Baton Rouge chapter of the NAACP called for East Baton Rouge Mayor-President Kip Holden to fire Baton Rouge Police Chief Carl Dabadie and for Holden to resign.
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Officials have not said whether Sterling was armed at the time he was killed. “Right when they’re needed most is when two of them malfunction in the same way”, she said.
