"We have been issued a second Federal Court Order prohibiting the release of the first court order as well,” the East Baton Rouge Parish Coroner’s Office told KSLA.
On July 5, Sterling was selling bootleg compact discs and DVDs outside a local convenience store, with the owner’s permission, when someone called police to report a man threatening people with a gun. After law enforcement arrived and attempted to arrest Sterling, a scuffle ensued. Sterling was then pinned face down by police officers and shot multiple times in the back and chest as he was being detained.
His death was captured in a chilling video by witnesses that quickly went viral as people demanded justice for his killing.
The owner of the store, Abdullah Muflahi, was one of the people who filmed the deadly encounter. He claims that one officers tased Sterling as the other tackled him. He has stated that Sterling was struggling to get the officer off of him when he was shot “four to six times.”
Muflahi further claims that he did not see a gun in Sterling’s hand during the incident, but witnessed police pull the gun from his pocket after he had already been fatally shot.
The investigation into the circumstances surrounding his death are still under investigation, and the two police officers involved, Officer Blane Salamoni and Officer Howie Lake II, remain on administrative leave.
Both officers had been wearing body cameras, which fell off during the incident and did not capture what happened. It is believed however, that the dashcam on the police vehicle, as well as surveillance footage from the store, captured the incident in full.
