In May, when asked about the possibility that police departments might be pulling back on enforcement efforts, FBI Director James Comey referred to the “viral video effect” – the idea that officers fear a backlash if they were to be involved in a hostile encounter that was caught on camera.
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Rosie Hernandez, whose nephew who is a Baton Rouge police officer, and her husband found seats Thursday inside the church where the vigil is being held. “If we can do that we are going to have a better community, a better Baton Rouge, a better state of Louisiana and by the way, I see that it is already happening”. He says this could just be a natural response to dealing with protests.
“In terms of, you’ve got a lot of officers that you’re pulling off of doing other things to respond to the one big things that the department is dealing with, which is the protests”, Asher said.
Once, the Vice president, Attorney General, and the other dignitaries finished speaking, the widows of the fallen officers bravely went up to the podium and shared their pain.
Officer Gerald was a military veteran who had done three tours of duty in Iraq.
“You told me that the better the police know the individuals in the community, not just generically the community, and the better they know the police, the safer they both will be, the cops and the community”, he said.
Family and friends and the Baton Rouge community have said their final good byes to Baton Rouge police officers Matthew Gerald and Montrell Jackson and East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Deputy Brad Garafola.
“They were defined by their courage”, he said.
In perhaps the most surprising portion of his speech, the vice president criticized police and citizens alike for viewing one another as “objects” instead of “individuals”.
“When I was a young senator, a tractor-trailer broadsided my family Christmas shopping, killed my wife, killed my daughter”, he said.
Alexander and his friend were taken to holding cells at a Louisiana State police station in Baton Rouge.
“All I can say right now is that they were questioned and released with no charges filed”, agency spokesman Doug Cain told The Advocate.
“That morning, I kissed him a little longer and hugged him a little tighter”, she said.
Rather than giving Alexander medicine, he said police called EMS, who just confirmed that his blood sugar was high and he needed medicine soon. “That’s the exact opposite of what I need”. Officers were anxious that he was lying about the medicine to commit suicide.
Stand Behind Our Stars free benefit concert at Florida Boulevard Baptist Church, which is located at 10915 Florida Boulevard, from 4 p.m.to 6 p.m.
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By this time, police had finally obtained footage from the Alexandria convenience store and realized Alexander hadn’t been involved with the shooting.
