Wednesday morning, hours after cellphone video that appeared to show 37-year-old Alton Sterling being shot by police in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, family members and NAACP members held a press conference calling for the involved officers to be arrested. “I believe this community deserves an answer. I don’t believe they should’ve waited this long to give us an answer we’ve been asking for,” State Rep. Denise Marcelle said.
Mike McClanahan, president of the Baton Rouge NAACP chapter, said Baton Rouge Chief of Police Carl Dabadie Jr. should be fired or resign “if he has the guts.” Sandra Sterling, who reportedly raised Alton, said she was “disturbed” and “hurt by what I saw” in the video. Still, she said, without the video, “We never would’ve known what really happened.” She added, “It’s a horrible thing that happened to him. He didn’t deserve that.” The mother of Alton Sterling’s 15-year-old son—identified by local media as Quinyetta McMillon—said during the news conference the cellphone video shows how Sterling “was handled unjustly.”
Behind her, McMillon and Sterling’s son bawled as she spoke. He was “killed without regard for the lives he helped raise,” she said. “I will not allow y’all to sweep him into the dirt.” She added, “He is not what the mass media is making him out to be... the individuals involved in his murder took away a man with children who depended on their daddy on a daily basis. My son is not the youngest, he is the oldest of his siblings. He is 15 years old. He had to watch this as it was put all over the outlets and everything that was possible to be shown.”
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards will meet Wednesday with officials from the Louisiana State Police and East Baton Rouge District Attorney Hillar Moore. Earlier Wednesday, Edmond Jordan, the attorney for Sterling’s family, asked for Louisiana State Police to take over the investigation.