New video emerges of the fatal police shooting of a Louisiana man pinned to the ground
The footage shows what happened after two officers - now identified as Baton Rouge police officers Blane Salamoni and Howie Lake - tackled 37-year-old Alton Sterling.
In the video, both officers hold Sterling to the ground. One officer appears to say, "You f---ing move, I swear to God," and then one officer fires two shots into Sterling's chest. Seconds later, at least three more shots can be heard. Afterward, one of the officers appears to remove something from Sterling's right pants pocket.
Police haven't confirmed or denied whether they found a weapon on Sterling, according to The Daily Beast.
Abduallah Muflahi, owner of Triple S Food Mart in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, provided the footage to The Daily Beast. Muflahi originally told The Advocate that officers had Sterling pinned to the ground.
"Mr. Sterling was not reaching for a weapon. He looks like a man that was actually fighting for his life," said Louisiana State Rep. Edmond Jordan, an attorney for Sterling's family, according to the Associated Press.
By the time paramedics arrived on scene, Sterling was dead. An autopsy revealed that he died of multiple gunshot wounds to the chest and back, according to the Associated Press.
Warning: The video below contains graphic content.
The initial video, filmed by an anonymous bystander, began circulating on social media Wednesday morning and showed the tackle and subsequent struggle, but panned away as shots were heard. On that footage, officers can be heard yelling that Sterling has a gun.
The officers initially responded to an anonymous 911 caller who said a man in a red shirt selling CDs threatened him with a gun. Muflahi, however, has said that Sterling had sold CDs in the area for years and wasn't known to be violent. Additionally, Muflahi told The Daily Beast that Sterling wasn't the one causing the trouble Tuesday night.
C. Denise Marcelle, a Louisiana state representative briefed by the police, told a local broadcaster that officers had been wearing body cameras but that they fell off during the struggle, The New York Times reported. She also said investigators recovered surveillance footage from cameras at the convenience store and on the dashboard of the patrol car.
The Justice Department has launched an investigation to determine whether police violated Sterling's civil rights. As is policy, the officers have been placed on administrative leave for the duration of the investigation, but maintain they were "completely justified," the district attorney said, according to The Advocate.
Protesters gathered around Baton Rouge on Tuesday night to mourn Sterling's death and demand justice. Sterling's name also began trending on Twitter, as Black Lives Matter activists and others expressed their frustration and sadness over his death.
During a press conference on Wednesday morning, relatives of Sterling called the incident a "murder" and demanded that the officers responsible be served the "adequate punishment." Sterling's 15-year-old son, his oldest, was hysterical, and family members had to take him away from the podium.