Mourners celebrate the life of Alton Sterling during his funeral service at the F.G. Clark Activity Center in Baton Rouge, La., Friday, July 15, 2016.
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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.
“Wrong must be corrected and the wrong must be held accountable”, the Rev. Al Sharpton said.
Gary Chambers, master of ceremonies for the funeral, said at the beginning that the event was meant to be a celebration of Mr Sterling’s life, not an opportunity for demonstrations about his death. The AP report said that court filings showed that one of Bridgewater’s accomplices told detectives that they broke into the pawn shop to steal guns so they could shoot police officers.
Sterling, 37, was shot dead by two white police officers who pinned him down outside a convenience store in Baton Rouge where he was selling CDs. His death, along with another fatal police shooting in Minnesota last week, sparked protests and heightened tensions in Baton Rouge.
Jackson also adds that Americans must choose reconciliation over retaliation and revenge, and apologized to Sterling.
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.
“Today, District Attorney Hillar C. Moore, III announced that after reviewing 185 individual affidavits of probable cause for arrests occurring between 7/8/16 and 7/11/16, he has determined that he will not prosecute approximately 100 of these cases involving protestors only charged with the misdemeanor crimes of obstruction of a roadway or public passage”.
Protests over police treatment of blacks drew thousands in Baton Rouge, and the Department of Justice has opened an investigation into Sterling’s shooting. The civil rights activist went on mention several black men who had lost their lives at the hands of police officers, including Eric Garner, whose death brought about a surge of anger among both blacks and whites, as well as police officers and civilians alike for the violent way in which the offending cop killed him. “He was truly the meaning of southern hospitality”, Muflahi said.
Sterling’s death and the two cellphone videos documenting it have sparked widespread protests.
“No one has the right to kill anyone”, said Rev. Jackson.
Police said they worked with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to to identify the boy. His death prompted protests and heightened tensions in the USA along with last week’s deadly police shooting of a black man in Minnesota and the killing of five police officers in Dallas.
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Those weapons weren’t recovered when that suspect, the 12-year-old, was caught, Baton Rouge police spokesman Sgt. Don Coppola Jr. told NBC News.
