Last week, recently-installed Baton Rouge Police Chief
Murphy Paul meted out punishments to Officers Blane Salamoni and Howie Lake II.
Salamoni, who shot and killed Alton Sterling in 2016, received termination from
the department, while Lake, who also struggled with Sterling, received three
days suspension.
Perhaps no death ever at the hands of police in Louisiana
has had so much scrutiny. A federal investigation, followed by a state version,
came
to an identical conclusion: the policing that occurred wasn’t the best, but
the officers’ actions were not criminal. Thus, officers had not even acted negligently
during the incident, which involved several instances of resistance by Sterling
who officers knew to have a handgun, and also actions by Sterling that conveyed
reasonably that he actively sought to pull it, disregarding repeatedly instructions
to stop his activities that ultimately made it rational for the officers to
fear for their lives.
It is unfortunate that Sterling died. But the one most responsible for his death certainly was not Lake, nor even Salamoni. It was Sterling himself. He was tripping out at the time of his death, and probably also minutes earlier when he had threatened a passer-by with the gun that provoked the police response. Both conditions would have sent him back to prison for a probation violation. Both also would explain why he resisted so vigorously. He must have gambled that he could somehow get out of the situation without being the worse for wear; regrettably, he lost, and more than anybody involved he contributed to his own death.
That set the stage for internal departmental
administrative actions. Likely, Salamoni’s belligerent behavior, even offset by
Lake’s occasional forays into trying to calm the situation, escalated the
situation. The question is whether that approach was necessary to get Sterling
to back down, as in a dangerous environment only extremely forceful commands
may prove sufficient.
The department’s use of force policy wording – “Every
member of the department shall use only the force necessary to effect an arrest
or maintain the custody of a suspect” – and command of temper regulation to “exercise
emotional control” are judgment calls by investigators. An argument either way
reasonably could be made reviewing recordings of the 90-odd second encounter.
These went against the officers, and it’s difficult
to assume the political environment didn’t have something to do with that,
despite Paul’s assertion that facts, not politics, solely drove the outcome. Prominent
area politicians sided with Sterling’s family and friends from the start in crying
for criminal charges against the officers, and some
used it as a broader indictment of American race relations (the officers are
white; Sterling was black). Riots ensued that culminated with a disturbed
individual, attracted by the mayhem and attention, retaliating
against law enforcement he saw as responsible for Sterling’s and other’s
deaths by killing three and injuring another three.
Even now, a faction continues to claim justice denied
for Sterling. Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome, who
hired Paul, long ago opined that Salamoni needed firing and Lake suspending, echoed
to varying extents by some other community activists critical of these
investigations and who likely supported Broome electorally. Too many view this
as the last chance for any kind of justice, and who knows what kind of
reaction, violent or otherwise, certain segments of the community would have
fomented if Salamoni had not suffered termination or Lake drew no punishment.
With all due respect to the authorities involved,
politics mattered. That doesn’t mean that the punishments – decisions that both
are appealing, which if unchanged may well end Salamoni’s law enforcement
career and at the very least take Lake off Baton Rouge streets forever – are inappropriate.
It just means politicians, whether elected or appointed, wish not to make the
embarrassing admission that politics influenced their call.
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