BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - Federal prosecutors have decided not to bring charges against two white Baton Rouge police officers, Blane Salamoni and Howie Lake II, in the July 2016 fatal shooting of Alton Sterling, a 37-year-old black man, outside a convenience store where he had been selling homemade CDs.
A timeline of events connected with his death:
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- July 5, 2016: Sterling was fatally shot during a struggle with Salamoni and Lake. Cellphone video of Sterling’s shooting spreads quickly on social media, sparking days of protests.
- July 6: The U.S. Justice Department opens a civil rights investigation, requested by Gov. John Bel Edwards. Hundreds gather in Baton Rouge to protest. In Minnesota, a woman livestreams 10 minutes of video showing her boyfriend, Philando Castile, minutes after he was shot by police at a traffic stop, heightening tensions.
- July 7: In Dallas, a sniper kills five police officers and wounds seven others during protests over the shootings of Sterling and Castile.
- July 8: Protests over Sterling’s and Castile’s deaths are held nationwide. Hundreds rally in Baton Rouge, and dozens are arrested. Quinyetta McMillion, mother of Sterling’s 15-year-old son, Cameron, says she wants the officers who shot him prosecuted.
- July 9. Protests continue. Black Lives Matter activist DeRay Mckesson is among more than 100 people arrested in Baton Rouge.
- July 10: About 2,000 people rally outside Louisiana’s Capitol. Later, dozens of protesters are arrested after police say they headed for an interstate on-ramp.
- July 11: The owner of the convenience store outside which Sterling was shot sues police in state district court. Abdullah Muflahi alleges police seized his store’s surveillance video equipment without a warrant, and confiscated his cellphone without letting him call his family or a lawyer.
- July 12: President Barack Obama calls Sterling’s and Castille’s families as he flies to a memorial for the five police officers killed in Dallas. At the memorial, he says videos of the shootings of Sterling and Castile “left us wounded and angry and hurt.”
- July 13: The American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana and other groups sue Baton Rouge law enforcement agencies, alleging they used excessive force and physically and verbally abused peaceful demonstrators.
- July 15: Alton Sterling is remembered at a public funeral attended by friends, family and prominent civil rights leaders. District Attorney Hillar Moore says his office will not prosecute about 100 of the 185 people arrested from July 8-11.
- July 17: Gavin Long, 29, a black man from Kansas City, Missouri, shoots and kills two police officers and a sheriff’s deputy in Baton Rouge and wounds three other officers before he’s killed by police.
- Aug. 4: Black Lives Matter activist DeRay Mckesson sues the city of Baton Rouge and police officials, saying officers responded in a “militarized and aggressive manner” in arresting him and other protesters.
- Nov. 21: Gov. Edwards meets with law enforcement officials to discuss ways to improve relations between police and the public, and to prepare for the possibility of more protests once the Justice Department completes its investigation.
- Dec. 1: A judge is asked to approve a settlement in a civil lawsuit filed on behalf of Mckesson and other protesters. Under the settlement, which is still pending, about 90 protesters arrested after the Sterling shooting would receive payments of about $500 each.
- May 2: The Associated Press learns the Justice Department has decided not to bring charges against the officers.
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