Justice
Baton Rouge District Attorney Reminds Public That Cops Have Legal 'Mandate' to Kill
Wednesday’s press conference on the police shooting of Alton Sterling named the officers involved, and brought up a troubling “mandate.”
A press conference was held Wednesday afternoon concerning the video of two Baton Rouge police officers killing Alton Sterling, a 37-year-old African American man who was selling CDs in front of a store before he was confronted by police. The press conference revealed a number of new facts:
But it was District Attorney Hillar Moore’s final comments at the press conference that were the most stunning. Responding to a question about what troubled him the most after seeing the Sterling video, Moore admitted up front that Sterling was killed by the police officers. Moore then immediately went into a legal explainer about the police officer’s right to draw that kind of lethal outcome. Said Moore in response to a reporter’s question: