Gary Chambers, a community activist and publisher of The Rouge Collection, is calling for a shutdown of today’s Metro Council meeting to demand action against the Baton Rouge police officers involved in the July 2016 killing of Alton Sterling.
In an eight-minute video posted around 1 a.m. on Facebook, Chambers says a host of different organizations, including the NAACP and the National Alliance for Social Justice, are participating in the planned demonstration and will “shut down the Metro Council meeting with a peaceful protest.” He calls on followers to gather at City Hall an hour before the 4 p.m. meeting.
But Metro Council Chairman Scott Wilson says the council is ready for the demonstrators and that no one is going to shut down today’s meeting. Wilson says he was made aware of the planned demonstration late Tuesday, prior to Chambers’ overnight Facebook post, and that arrangements have been made with Baton Rouge police to provide adequate security. He declines to provide details as to how many officers will be present and whether they will be in uniform.
“Law enforcement will be there and any disrupters will be asked to leave,” he says. “If they don’t leave, they will be escorted out.”
Chambers’ planned demonstration comes one week after the U.S. Justice Department’s May 3 announcement that it found insufficient evidence to prosecute BRPD officers Blane Salamoni and Howie Lake II on federal civil rights charges in Sterling’s death. Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry is now reviewing the evidence to determine whether state criminal charges should be brought against the officers.
Though the Metro Council has no legal jurisdiction over the matter, Chambers says the council can exert pressure in a number of ways.
“They do control, to some degree, what happens with the police department,” Chambers tells Daily Report. “They can affect the police department budget. They can pass a resolution calling for the officers to be fired. We want them to stop pretending that they don’t have the ability to prevent future Alton Sterlings.”
Metro Council meetings have become increasingly rancorous of late. At the April 26 meeting, debate over the Nicholson Drive streetcar and police body cameras became so heated and lengthy that the meeting ended before several items on the agenda could be addressed. At the April 12 meeting, four Democratic members of the Council forced a shutdown of the meeting by walking out in protest over a measure related to the East Baton Rouge Council on Aging.
Two potentially controversial measures on today’s meeting agenda have already been deferred for reasons unrelated to the planned protest. Councilman Buddy Amoroso says a cooperative endeavor agreement between the city-parish and the East Baton Rouge Council on Aging that needs to be ratified before a new tax for the COA can be levied, has been deferred until June.
Another measure, a resolution by Amoroso opposing a bill by Rep. Ted James, D-Baton Rouge, that would give the mayor the authority to fire the police chief, has also been pulled from the agenda. Amoroso says James has been making changes to the measure.
Nonetheless, Amoroso says it’s important the meeting go forward without disruption.
“There’s nothing really earth shattering on the agenda, but there are always contracts to be approved,” he says. “There are always issues we need to take care of.”
The Metro Council is scheduled to convene at 4 p.m. at City Hall, 222 St. Louis St. See the full agenda.
—Stephanie Riegel
