BATON ROUGE – An attorney representing family members of Alton Sterling in a civil case says the police officer who fatally shot Sterling was “borderline nuts” and shouldn’t have been wearing a badge.
Baton Rouge Police officer Blane Salamoni was fired and Howie Lake II was suspended for three days for the fatal incident outside a Baton Rouge gas station in 2016 that led to days of protests and international media coverage.
Attorneys in the case now say they have evidence showing Salamoni shouldn’t have been allowed to carry a gun at the time, including an email sent by a superior calling Salamoni “borderline nuts.”
That email was sent a year before Sterling was killed.
No one was criminally charged in the case.
As part of the civil suit, attorneys plan to look into training practices within the Baton Rouge Police Department.
A date for the civil trial has been set for April 20, 2020.
