Some expected the sky would fall on the day the U.S. Justice Department announced its decision not to prosecute two Baton Rouge police officers for the July 2016 shooting death of Alton Sterling, says Business Report Editor Stephanie Riegel.
Thankfully, she says, that didn’t happen.
“This was largely due to what appears to have been a calculated move by the DOJ to leak word of their decision to the national media and mute the potential outrage on the ground in Baton Rouge,” Rigel writes in her latest column.
Though Baton Rouge has weathered one storm, Riegel says the hard part is really just beginning because the community can never go back to the way it was before.
“The Sterling incident and the subsequent ambush killing of three local law enforcement officers last summer brought to light a lot of the tensions that have bubbled beneath the surface here for a long time,” she writes. “How the community moves forward will be a defining moment for Baton Rouge.”
It could also be a defining moment for Mayor Sharon Weston Broome, Riegel says.
“She needs a win. Since taking office in January, she has proven that she is well-intentioned and hard working. She gives a lot of speeches and makes herself accessible, all of which is commendable and important,” she writes. “But there are also real questions about her ability to get things done. She’s too nice, in some respects, and hasn’t demonstrated a stomach for playing political hardball.”
Riegel says Broome’s first four months in office have been marred by several missteps.
“She vowed to hire a new police chief before researching the civil service rules—alienating law enforcement in the process. She bumbled the release of her transition team reports, and then appeared not to have read them,” Riegel writes. “She spent months searching for a chief administrative officer, bypassing several highly qualified candidates, only to hire a guy that resigned a week later, after The Advocate exposed that he’d lied on his résumé and had been arrested twice.”
While the community waits for Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry to review the Sterling case and determine whether state criminal charges are warranted, Riegel says there are opportunities for Broome to get out in front and lead on some of the underlying issues that set the stage for the Sterling shooting in the first place.
“Police reform is one. Economic development in north Baton Rouge and other impoverished neighborhoods is another. Those are specific areas in which concrete steps can be taken to bring about meaningful change. In the meantime, she has to bring on board a competent CAO, who knows how to run the city day-to-day and doesn’t play games based on skin color,” Riegel writes. “It’s an opportunity for Baton Rouge and its new mayor to turn things around before it’s too late. Just because the sky hasn’t fallen yet, doesn’t mean it still won’t.”
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