No criminal charges for officers in 2016 Baton Rouge shooting

Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry announced Tuesday he will not file criminal charges against two white Baton Rouge police officers in the 2016 shooting death of a black man outside a convenience store. Officer Blane Salamoni shot and killed 37-year-old Alton Sterling when he refused to cooperate during their attempt to arrest him for selling homemade CDs. Officer Howie Lake II helped wrestle Sterling to the ground but did not fire his gun. The shooting prompted nightly protests after two cellphone videos of the incident spread on social media. Police have not released the officers’ body camera footage or video taken by a store surveillance camera. After the shooting, the officers found a loaded gun in Sterling’s pocket. He previously pleaded guilty to illegally possessing a gun. After the shooting, the U.S. Justice Department opened a civil rights investigation that eventually concluded evidence did not show Salamoni and Lake violated Sterling’s rights or acted with an objectively unreasonable use of force. During Tuesday’s announcement, Landry noted toxicology reports showed Sterling had illegal drugs in his system at the time of the shooting, suggesting the drugs’ influence “contributed to his non-compliance.”