Thousands protest over Alton Sterling's death as new video shows two cops kill a black guy
The graphic footage shows Sterling being thrown to the ground by cops Blane Salamoni and Howie Lake II after they received a complaint about a man making threats with a gun while selling CDs outside a convenience store in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
The cops are seen yelling at Sterling to 'get on the ground' - but he does not - before he is tackled by the officers.
As
Sterling continues to move on the ground, the officer believed to be
Lake reaches for his gun and then points it at the father-of-five's
chest.
One of the officers then yells: 'He's got a gun! Gun! You f****** move and I swear to God.'
Less
than two seconds later, the first shot is heard, followed quickly by
another two. Three more shots are heard as the startled shop owner
momentarily turns his camera away from the scene.
As
Sterling lies on the ground with blood seeping from his chest, one of
the officers leans over and grabs what appears to be a gun from the
street seller's pocket. It is not clear whether Sterling was reaching
for his gun, but he was not holding it at the time he was shot.
After
the deadly incident, police took CCTV footage from the store without
the owner's permission, but said they would be handing the video over to
investigators.
It
also emerged that Lake, a three-year veteran, has been suspended before
for another police-involved shooting of a black man.
Baton
Rouge police officers stayed away and let Wednesday night's
demonstration go unchecked, despite huge traffic jams building up around
the area as demonstrators spilled onto the streets.
Some held placards calling police ‘murderers’ and pleaded for justice over Sterling's death.
Sandra
Sterling, Alton's aunt, was seen struggling to cope as she was joined
by thousands of people demanding justice for her slain nephew.
One
demonstrator Ashley Jones, 31, waved a poster and said: ‘I have got an
11-year-old son and I don’t want him to have to live his life feeling
scared the police might shoot him.’
Her friend Gigi Granger, 32, added: ‘We drove two hours to get here and we felt we had to be here to make our voices heard.
‘I have got a son who is just seven. He will grow up to be a proud black man and I want him to live his life freely.
‘The police are scaring us with their hysteria and killing of young black men, when they should be protecting us.’
Queen
Bennett, 34, who knew the shooting victim, said: ‘He was a regular guy,
always friendly and just trying to feed his family.
‘I would buy his CDs and DVDs from him and he would sell them for $5 for three. They were copies.
‘All
he wanted to do was feed his family and for them to be proud of him. He
was trying his best. He didn’t deserve to die like that.
‘The video shows the police were on top of him and they had no reason to pump him with bullets.’
Not
a single police officer attended the protest and vigil in memory of
Sterling, a father-of-five, who was tasered and shot by police as they
bundled him to the ground.
The decision by police to stay away was seen as a cautionary move as uniformed presence might have led to violent outbursts.
Two videos showing Sterling’s last moments were captured by onlookers.
One
was shot by Abdul Muflahi, owner of the Triple S Food Mart, and he was
praised by speakers for coming forward with his key evidence.
Muflahi
told the Guardian that he kept the cell phone footage because he was
afraid his store's surveillance video would be destroyed by police.
'As soon as I finished the video, I put my phone in my pocket. I knew they would take it from me, if they knew I had it.
'They
took my security camera videos. They told me they had a warrant, but
didn’t show me one. So I kept this video for myself. Otherwise, what
proof do I have?'
Baton Rouge police admitted they took the video, but said that they would be handing the video over to federal investigators.
One
speaker at the protest said: ‘He could have chosen to stay in the
background and said, like many of us might have, that he hadn’t seen
anything.'
She said he had shown that Alton Sterling was murdered and he needed 'to be thanked for that.’
Supporters painted a huge mural of the shooting victim on the side of the grocery store with permission of the owner.
The Department of Justice announced on Wednesday that they would be leading the civil rights investigation into the shooting.
Democrat
Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said in a statement: 'The death
of Alton Sterling is a tragedy and my prayers are with his family,
including his five children.
‘From
Staten Island to Baltimore, Ferguson to Baton Rouge, too many African
American families mourn the loss of a loved one from a police-involved
incident.
‘Something
is profoundly wrong when so many Americans have reason to believe that
our country doesn’t consider them as precious as others because of the
color of their skin.’
Civil Rights campaigner Rev. Jesses Jackson tweeted: ‘ The force was excessive. It was unnecessary and it was deadly.’
The
protest group Black Lives Matter said it would be organizing several
protests in the coming days at the ‘latest murder by police of an
innocent black man'.
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