Baton Rouge District Attorney Hillar C. Moore told WBRZ that 185 people were arrested during protests over the police shooting death of 37-year-old Alton Sterling.
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Sterling’s family asked for the day to be a peaceful celebration of life, a pastor said at the opening of the service.
Sterling’s death heightened tensions in Baton Rouge, where about 200 protesters were arrested over the weekend, and police said they had foiled a credible threat to attack officers. Coupled with the July 6 shooting death of a Minnesota man pulled over for a broken tail light whose death was recorded by his girlfriend, the killings sparked protests in several major cities around the country.
“We took this as a very viable threat”, Dabadie said at a press conference about the pawn shop robbery last week. Friday, July 15, 2016. “We have got to stop going from funeral to funeral”. “We’re going to have an empty spot in front of the store”.
She said the encounter Sterling had with police “went too far” as police tackled him and used a stun gun on him.
On July 7, a gunman named Micah Xavier Johnson shot and killed five Dallas police officers, as well as wounded several civilians, in an act he claimed to have been in defense of blacks who have lost their lives at the hands of white cops over the years.
Among those who will not be prosecuted is DeRay Mckesson, a leading figure in the call for police reform who has risen to national prominence with the increasing visibility of the Black Lives Matter movement. Authorities said they discovered the plot after a pawn shop burglary, and one of the suspects was to appear in court Friday.
Two of President Barack Obama’s senior officials-Roy Austin, deputy assistant to the president for urban affairs, and Stephanie Young, an Obama adviser-attended the funeral, The Associated Press reports.
For the family, though, it was simply an opportunity to mourn their loved one’s death and say goodbye to him one last time before his body is put to rest. He told people that if they wanted to protest, they should leave.
The ACLU in Louisiana says a prosecutor’s decision not to charge about 100 protesters should not be seen as a victory because they shouldn’t have been arrested in the first place.
Mr Sharpton called for more accountability for police officers who kill African-Americans and reeled off a list of high-profile police shootings that have angered many in the black community.
A public viewing is set to begin at 8 a.m. CDT at Southern University in Baton Rouge followed by a funeral service.
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Meanwhile, a man involved in what police have described as a credible threat to harm police officers made his initial appearance in federal court.
