Today marks the one year anniversary of the fatal shooting of 37-year-old Alton Sterling, a black man, by Baton Rouge police.
Sterling was selling CDs outside of a North Foster Drive convenience store when he was confronted and fatally by Officer Blane Salamoni, who along with Officer Howie Lake II was responding to a report of a man brandishing a gun.
The shooting—captured by cellphone videos that would go viral—shook the city and reverberated nationwide. Protests ensued, and Baton Rouge’s racial, geographic and economic divides were exposed.
And while the DOJ has decided not to press civil rights charges against the two officers who’ve been on paid leave since, federal officials did criticize the officers actions as reckless.
The encounter only lasted 90 seconds, the DOJ says.
Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry is investigating and could possibly press criminal charges. And Mayor Sharon Weston Broome joined the chorus of voices asking Baton Rouge Police Chief Carl Dabadie Jr. to fire the officers.
Some residents had hoped the national spotlight would help close economic gaps and improve policing in Baton Rouge.
As Business Report has reported in the year since, economic development has been slow going in north Baton Rouge, although there are some signs of progress.
North Baton Rouge voters approved a 2% hotel occupancy tax last year to fund an economic development district there. And in January, Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center  started construction on a new emergency room that will close a gap in emergency health care services and bring lifesaving treatment closer to residents in north Baton Rouge. The new facility—an 8,000-square foot addition to the LSU Health Baton Rouge North Clinic at 5439 Airline Highway in Baton Rouge—will have eight treatment rooms capable of flexing up to 11 treatment spaces. It is slated for an October opening.
The McKay Automotive Training Center, a 83,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art facility that will provide students with classroom instruction and practical experience for entry-level jobs in automotive service and maintenance. The center is part of the 200-acre Ardendale campus, where the East Baton Rouge Parish Schools has also broken ground on a career high school.
Rinaldi Jacobs, interim director for the North Baton Rouge Economic Development District, has been keeping tabs on what’s going on in north Baton Rouge. Jacobs has compiled a list of some $250 million worth of public and private construction projects underway—that doesn’t include another $500 million in investments at the airport and nearby chemical plants.
“You can’t tell me north Baton Rouge isn’t getting any investment,” he says. “Things are happening here. That has to be the new narrative.”
Read a recent Business Report story about efforts to improve north Baton Rouge.
