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Two Baton Rouge Police Officers Fatally Shot a Black Man While He Was Pinned Down

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Early Tuesday morning, two police officers shot and killed a 37-year-old black man in Baton Rouge, La. Although the details are still developing, someone caught the fatal and graphic incident on video, which has circulated widely on social media and sparked outrage.

WARNING: The video below contains graphic violence.

The clip shows Alton Sterling being pinned down, CNN reports. A "pop" can be heard before someone yells, "Get on the ground." The two officers bring Sterling down and restrain him. A few seconds later, someone said, "He’s got a gun." Several bangs, presumably shots, can be heard in the video.

According to The Advocate, East Baton Rouge Coroner William "Beau" Clark said that Sterling suffered multiple gunshot wounds to both the chest and back.

The two officers had gone to the scene after an anonymous 911 call claimed that Sterling threatened another person with a gun. Both of them "have been placed on administrative leave per standard procedure. This is an ongoing investigation," Baton Rouge Police Chief Carl Dabadie said in a statement. The BRPD has not released the names of the officers yet. 

Riots have already sparked up in Baton Rouge. According to USA Today, protesters are calling for even more demonstrations for Wednesday night following the backlash from the graphic video. Crowds of more than 200 people protested at the scene just hours after the fatal shooting, the BBC reports. They chanted, "Black lives matter."

Sandra Sterling, the aunt of the victim, told CNN that he nephew was a "gentle giant." According to The Washington Post, she had raised Alton as her own son after his mother died.

"All I want is justice for my child," she told The Post. "I want the same treatment y'all are giving that person in Marksville that killed that little white baby. I want that same kind of justice," she said, referring to the police shooting of a white 6-year-old in Louisiana in November.

Apparently, Sterling, a father of five, was known as the "CD man." He would frequently sell CDs and DVDs outside the convenient store where he was eventually shot. Edmond Jordan, the attorney for the Sterling family, said, "Alton was out there selling CDs, trying to make a living. He was doing it with the permission of the store owner, so he wasn’t trespassing or anything like that."

Abdullah Muflahi, the owner of the Triple S Food Mart convenient store, also told CNN that Sterling never got into fights outside the store throughout the six years they’ve known each other. 

This is the latest in a string of what many see as racially charged killings by police officers. According to the Guardian, police killed five times as many young black men as they did young white men in 2015. The finding also indicated that one in every 65 deaths of a young African American man in the U.S. is due to the police.

Although the officers' body cameras fell off during the deadly altercation, the Baton Rouge police told CNN that detectives will review that video and interview the two men involved. In a statement, Representative Cedric Richmond called on the U.S. Department of Justice to join the investigation, as well.

"I ask the leaders and citizens of Baton Rouge to join me in demonstrating our anger with dignity and demanding proper focus on our cause with perseverance. His family and the citizens of Baton Rouge—especially the citizens of North Baton Rouge—deserve answers and that is what we will seek in a fair, thorough, and transparent way."


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