Alton Sterling, a black man shot and killed in front of a convenience store last week by Baton Rouge police, was remembered today as the “meaning of southern hospitality” and called a “martyr” by The Rev. Jesse Jackson.
Crowds of mourners gathered in Southern University’s F.G. Clark Activity Center for Sterling’s funeral. Two of President Barack Obama’s senior officials—Roy Austin, deputy assistant to the president for urban affairs, and Stephanie Young, an Obama adviser—attended the funeral, The Associated Press reports.
The Rev. Al Sharpton also attend the funeral. Gary Chambers, a spokesman for the Sterling family and master of ceremonies for the funeral, said at the beginning that the event was intended to be a celebration of Sterling’s life—not an opportunity for demonstrations about his death. He told people that if they wanted to protest, they should leave.
Sterling, 37, was shot and killed on July 5 during a struggle with two white Baton Rouge police officers. His death, along with another fatal police shooting in Minnesota last week, sparked protests and heightened tensions in Baton Rouge.
In a separate report, ABC News quotes Jackson as saying: “Our strongest weapon is not guns and violence, it is the rightness of our cause. There is power in innocent blood.”
Jackson also adds that Americans must choose reconciliation over retaliation and revenge, and apologized to Sterling.
“We could have done better when you were alive,” Jackson says.
Abdullah Muflahi, the owner of the Triple S Food Mart where Sterling was shot and killed, says Sterling wasn’t just a man who sold CDs in front of his store, he was a friend. Muflahi also recalled how friendly Sterling was when he moved to Baton Rouge from Michigan.
Meanwhile, East Baton Rouge District Attorney Hillar Moore III says his office won’t be prosecuting more than half of protesters who have been arrested in Baton Rouge since the shooting.
Moore says his office reviewed police reports on 185 arrests between July 8-11 and determined it will not prosecute roughly 100 of them.
Moore says those cases involve protesters who only were arrested on misdemeanor charges of obstruction of a roadway or public passage. The ACLU of Louisiana and other groups filed a lawsuit earlier this week over the treatment of protesters by police.
Moore says DeRay Mckesson, a prominent Black Lives Matter activist, is among those who will not be prosecuted.
