Why the feds did not file charges in Alton Sterling’s death
Emanuella Grinberg
They concluded their actions were reasonable given the situation and thus met constitutional standards based on the following factors: The officers were responding to a call that someone matching Sterling’s description brandished a weapon and threatened another person, Sterling was large and strong, Sterling struggled with officers and failed to follow orders The officers used several less than lethal techniques to subdue Sterling before using lethal force when Salamoni believed that Sterling was reaching for a gun, It’s not clear that Sterling was NOT reaching for his gun, To prove a Fourth Amendment violation, the government had to disprove the officers’ accounts and find another one that showed their actions were ”objectively unreasonable.
['They', 'concluded', 'their', 'actions', 'were', 'reasonable', 'given', 'the', 'situation', 'and', 'thus', 'met', 'constitutional', 'standards', 'based', 'on', 'the', 'following', 'factors:', 'The', 'officers', 'were', 'responding', 'to', 'a', 'call', 'that', 'someone', 'matching', 'Sterling’s', 'description', 'brandished', 'a', 'weapon', 'and', 'threatened', 'another', 'person,', 'Sterling', 'was', 'large', 'and', 'strong,', 'Sterling', 'struggled', 'with', 'officers', 'and', 'failed', 'to', 'follow', 'orders', 'The', 'officers', 'used', 'several', 'less', 'than', 'lethal', 'techniques', 'to', 'subdue', 'Sterling', 'before', 'using', 'lethal', 'force', 'when', 'Salamoni', 'believed', 'that', 'Sterling', 'was', 'reaching', 'for', 'a', 'gun,', 'It’s', 'not', 'clear', 'that', 'Sterling', 'was', 'NOT', 'reaching', 'for', 'his', 'gun,', 'To', 'prove', 'a', 'Fourth', 'Amendment', 'violation,', 'the', 'government', 'had', 'to', 'disprove', 'the', 'officers’', 'accounts', 'and', 'find', 'another', 'one', 'that', 'showed', 'their', 'actions', 'were', '”objectively', 'unreasonable.']