By Police1 Staff
BATON ROUGE, La. — New video has surfaced that captures the fatal police shooting of 37-year-old Alton Sterling from a different angle.
The video, recorded by a cellphone, was obtained Wednesday by The Daily Beast hours after the Department of Justice announced it would be launching a civil rights investigation into the shooting.
Angled toward the grille of the vehicle that partially blocked the original footage of the shooting, the video shows Officers Blane Salamoni and Howie Lake II struggle with Sterling on the ground before firing multiple shots. One of the officers can be seen removing an object from Sterling’s pocket.
At a news conference earlier Wednesday, Baton Rouge Police Chief Carl Dabadie Jr. said Sterling was armed at the time of the shooting, according to the Associated Press. It is not clear from the video if the object the officer removed was Sterling’s weapon.
Hundreds protested the July 5 shooting Tuesday night and called for a federal investigation into the incident. The Baton Rouge Police Department has handed over dash-cam, body cam, and surveillance footage from the officer-involved shooting over to the DOJ. Chief Dabadie Jr. cautioned that the body cameras were dislodged during the struggle and may not have clearly documented the incident.