Lousiana Attorney General Jeff Landry took what they might call a soft cop approach meeting with the family first and then telling them justice would be denied. He reviewed the facts: the end results are the same for the children of Alton Sterling who continue a civil litigation against the police and other parties as justice was denied as in the Department of Justice decision nearly a year ago.
As throughout the struggle for justice for Alton Sterling, to put into jail the two cops who murdered him, people gather at the Triple S convenience store on Foster Boulevard.
In stark contrast to any disciplinary action that an ordinary worker would expect, the two racist white officers have received their full salaries during a 20-month suspension. Unlike the odds for Black men in Louisiana where one in seven is tied to the correction system these two cops are now free from the fear of being prosecuted after lounging around for 20 months.
Baton Rouge Police Chief Murphy Paul will decide on March 30 if there will be any disciplinary action against it the two white officers who had been let off by the DOJ and now by the Attorney General of Louisiana.
Children’s lawsuit
However the struggle to gain justice and push back the racist police in Baton Rouge is far from over. Still pending is the lawsuit by the five children of Alton Sterling asserting wrongful death based on an extreme pattern of racism and violence by the Baton Rouge Police Department.
Also coming together is a new and dynamic coalition in Baton Rouge that has begun to form this spring to tear down East Baton Rouge Parish prison where hundreds were held after they were arrested in peaceful demonstrations across Baton Rouge after the murder of Alton Sterling in 2016.
Linda Franks told Liberation News that this news: “Solidifies the need for work for change in the city/country when it comes not only to policing. I fall short of saying changing people’s hearts–revealing their hearts to them.” Franks is the mother of a young man who was killed in the East Baton Rouge Parish prison in 2015 while he was being held on a traffic violation. She is a leader of the new anti-prison coalition in Baton Rouge that intends to tear down the Jim Crow parish prison that is filled with oppressed people and poor people year round.
