Scrutiny falls on police handling of Baton Rouge protesters

Bachman said police had cleared a group of protesters, including members of the New Black Panther Party carrying bullhorns and shotguns, from the road before Evans walked onto the highway and stood before a wall of officers.

Outside the store, members of the Nation of Islam renewed calls for boycotts of businesses. He said his cellphone was also confiscated, and he was locked in the back of a police auto for approximately four hours.

Muflahi, who shot video on his cellphone of the shooting, claims in court documents that he was illegally detained for four hours following the shooting of Sterling.

“At all times defendants knew the plaintiff Muflahi was only a witness to the events at his store and that being a witness did not entitle police to hold Plaintiff in custody or seize or commandeer his store and equipment”, the lawsuit states.

WWL-TV reached out to BRPD about the lawsuit, however, a spokesperson said they do not comment about ongoing litigation.

After almost a week of protests over the killing of Alton Sterling, Baton Rouge officers, state police and other law enforcement agencies have received criticism for their methods of dealing with demonstrators.

In all, the police ended up arresting nearly 50 people on Sunday, largely connected to the protest outside Batiste’s house, but also a couple of other smaller demonstrations around town. However, authorities were analyzing dash cam video and store surveillance video, which are believed to have captured the ordeal.

After a lengthy standoff, more police in full riot gear moved in, pinning some of the protesters as others fled.

According to the warrant, the officers attempted to restrain Sterling and used their tasers after Sterling failed to do what he was asked.

According to the affidavit, the officers noticed the butt of a gun in Sterling’s front trousers pocket. At this time, the owner started recording the incident on his cell phone, capturing the shots by the police officers that killed Sterling.

Alton Sterling’s family will hold his funeral at the Southern University F.G. Clark Activity Center.

A viewing is scheduled from 8 am.to 10.30 am, with the service to follow at 11 am.

Tensions have been rising since last week’s killings of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge and Philando Castile in Minnesota by white officers, and an attack on police by a black sniper in Dallas that killed five officers.

The demonstrations in Chicago in recent days have been relatively peaceful, though police scuffled with some protesters Saturday, resulting in 16 arrests.

Batiste and three other people living on the street said they didn’t see any rocks being thrown at law enforcement by demonstrators.

Attorney General Jeff Landry’s statement came minutes after the district attorney in the parish were Sterling died announced that he was recusing himself from the case. “They managed to get most of the protesters off to the side”, Bachman told the BBC via email. “They seized him. They detained him without what, the proper authority of the law”, Porter said.

The Justice Department has opened a federal civil rights investigation of Sterling’s death.

East Baton Rouge District Attorney Hillar C. Moore III said Monday at a news conference that those decisions will be made on a case-by-case basis.

Evans, the mother of a 5-year-old boy, traveled to Baton Rouge “because she wanted to look her son in the eyes to tell him she fought for his freedom and rights”, according to R. Alex Haynes, who said on Facebook he had known Evans since childhood.

The affidavit sheds no light on what verbal conversation the officers, who the police chief identified last week as Blane Salamoni and Howie Lake, had with Sterling. He said Baton Rouge has a “faulty foundation” that needs to be fixed by making the city more unified across racial lines.

In Washington, on the fourth night of protests, several hundred protesters who had marched two miles to Union Station accepted without complaint the news from organizers and police that they could not march on the Capitol without a permit.

Police made dozens of arrests in Louisiana’s capital city during weekend protests around the country in which people angry over police killings of young black men sought to block some major interstates. “This group was certainly not about a peaceful protest”, said Col. Mike Edmonson, superintendent of the state police, on Sunday night.

More than a thousand demonstrators left a Black Lives Matter rally in Memphis, Tennessee, and occupied a Mississippi River bridge Sunday night, temporarily halting traffic on Interstate 40.