The aunt of Baton Rouge shooting victim Alton Sterling says he was not carrying a gun when he was shot by two police officers.
Sandra Augustus told CTV News Channel Wednesday that Sterling, whom she raised from a young age and calls her son, frequently sold homemade CDs outside the convenience store where two white officers confronted him just after midnight Tuesday.
Baton Rouge police say officers, one a four-year veteran and the other with three years’ experience, responded to a call from an anonymous man who alleged Sterling was threatening someone with a gun.
But Augustus alleges there was no such call and that police had been “harassing” Sterling all day. She says police waited until crowds around the store had died down.
The 37-year-old man was the father of four children.
“Alton was a good kid. He was a good kid. He was kinda private in his younger ages but as he got older he became well known as the CD guy because that’s what he’s been doing for a while.”
Augustus, who sits on an anti-violence committee in Baton Rouge, says she spoke to the governor but has not heard a word from the police.
“I want justice for my son. I myself just saw the video this morning… It’s just hard to believe. I just wish I was there. I keep saying to myself that maybe if I was there something would have went a little different. So I’m kind of like blaming myself,” she said.
“The one time I feel I let him down because I wasn’t there for him. I feel bad about what they did to him. It was horrible.”
Sterling lost his mother in 1986 when he was a young boy. Augustus, though just a teen at the time, took charge of raising her sister’s son.
Cellphone video of the shooting has fuelled rage in the Louisiana city. An autopsy shows Sterling was shot multiple times in the chest and back.
The owner of the convenience store told The Advocate newspaper that Sterling was not holding a gun during the altercation with police but that he saw officers remove one from his pocket after the shooting.
Augustus says she hopes protests over her nephew’s death will remain peaceful.
“We’re not so much afraid of the police, it’s more that we’re losing our trust. And I’m not saying the whole city police … I’m just talking about those individuals.”
The video, taken by a bystander, shows officers ordering Sterling to the ground and then one grabbing him from behind and tackling him to the ground before shots were fired. Police say body cameras on the officers fell off during the scuffle but kept recording. There are also videos from the cruiser’s dash-cam and the store’s surveillance.
The officers have been placed on administrative leave and the U.S. Justice Department has opened a civil rights investigation.
