The investigation of a deadly police shooting that inflamed racial tensions in Baton Rouge has ended without criminal charges against two police officers who confronted Alton Sterling outside a North Foster Drive convenience store in 2016.
But experts in police tactics think the bloodshed could have been avoided if the officers had done more to defuse the encounter with Sterling. They say poor police tactics and techniques may have aggravated the volatile confrontation, which lasted less than 90 seconds.
Sterling’s death fits a tragic pattern of “utterly preventable” police shootings and reinforces an urgent need for sweeping cultural changes in law enforcement training and procedures, says former Seattle police Chief Norm Stamper, author of the 2016 book Protect And Serve: How To Fix America’s Police. The fatal shooting of an unarmed black man in Sacramento, California, last week appears to be the latest example of the persistent problem, he adds.
“These cops in Baton Rouge, in Sacramento, everywhere, are doing what they’ve been taught to do,” Stamper says. “Most of these controversial shootings are the result of conditioning and training.”
Federal authorities consulted two independent experts who concluded that officers Blane Salamoni and Howie Lake II employed poor tactics that may have aggravated the volatile confrontation. However, those use-of-force experts ultimately concluded that the officers used “reasonable” force against Sterling, according to a report released Tuesday by Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry.
Landry ruled out charges against the two officers nearly 11 months after the U.S. Justice Department announced neither officer would be charged with federal crimes. Now that the criminal investigations are over, Baton Rouge’s police chief plans to decide by Friday whether to discipline Salamoni or Lake for their actions in the early morning hours of July 5, 2016.
Charles Key Sr., one of the experts consulted by the Justice Department, says the officers’ actions created tactical problems that may have escalated the threat. Key told federal investigators that the officers should have engaged Sterling at gunpoint “from a position of cover” instead of initially approaching him up close.
“Tactically, the officers didn’t handle it very well,” he says. “Their tactics put them at risk.”
Stamper also says too many officers are trained to think they can’t back down from a fight and consider survival first, instead of safety. “It’s just critical that police officers start with the sanctity of human life,” he adds.
