Authorities in Louisiana – already rocked by the deadly police shooting of an African American man – said Tuesday they have arrested three black youths for stealing guns they planned to use to kill officers. “I think his statement was to get bullets to harm officers in the Baton Rouge area”, Chief Carl Dabadie says.
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Malik Bridgewater, 20, and an unidentified 13-year-old have been taken into police custody.
Dabadie said police are still looking for a fourth person who is also thought to have been involved in the robbery and is still at large.
The first suspect told police “the reason the burglary was being done was to harm police officers” the chief said.
Authorities in Louisiana have defended their response to protesters, saying that their gear – which evoked the chaos that unfolded on the streets of Ferguson, Mo., after a white officer shot a black teenager there in 2014 – was needed to protect police officers.
Each suspect faces charges including burglary, simple burglary, and theft of a firearm, but have not been charged with the alleged plot.
Officers approached Alton Sterling in the parking lot of the convenience store, and “an altercation between Sterling and the officers ensued”, police said. Dozens of demonstrators had blocked Baton Rouge’s Airline Highway on Saturday to denounce the death four days earlier of Alton Sterling, shot by police outside a convenience store.
“Yet Alton Sterling is on the long list of Black people killed needlessly by our nation’s police, and protests in his honor have turned into circuses of violence where the First Amendment is tossed aside”.
“I want everyone to protest the right way”.
D’Ahmad Winfield, 23, who is friends with one of the suspects, was detained and questioned by police.
The 15-year-old appeared in front of media cameras the previous week when he eventually turned and sobbed while others comforted him and spoke about his father.
Video footage of the protest shows police in riot gear grabbing peaceful protestors and throwing them to the ground before placing them under arrest. The two also have showed up at protests, urging calm. “Most of the protesters tried to obey police orders to stay out of the roadway, even backing off a grassy strip next to the road when police told them to move onto the sidewalk”. Everyone should come together as one united family.
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“Although I am constrained in commenting on the particular facts of these cases, I am encouraged that the U.S. Department of Justice has opened a civil rights investigation in Baton Rouge, and I have full confidence in their professionalism and their ability to conduct a thoughtful, thorough, and fair inquiry”.
