BATON ROUGE, Louisiana — A federal judge has sealed an autopsy report on the death of Alton Sterling, the 37-year-old black man who was shot and killed during a struggle with two white police officers last month, East Baton Rouge Parish Coroner Beau Clark said Tuesday.
Clark said during a telephone interview that he also is prohibited from releasing a copy of the judge’s order sealing his office’s autopsy report. Clark said he signed the report on Monday.
Clark said this was the first time since he became the parish’s coroner in 2012 that a court order has sealed one of his office’s autopsy reports. He said he customarily consults law-enforcement authorities before publicly releasing any autopsy reports for deaths that are under criminal investigation.
Clark announced last month that the autopsy showed Sterling died of multiple gunshot wounds to the chest and back, but he hasn’t disclosed any other details of his office’s findings.
The Justice Department is investigating Sterling’s fatal shooting outside a Baton Rouge convenience store. A spokeswoman for Baton Rouge-based U.S. Attorney Walter Green’s office said they couldn’t comment on the judge’s order due to the ongoing civil rights investigation.
Cellphone video of the deadly encounter circulated within hours of Sterling’s July 5 shooting, triggering protests in Baton Rouge and beyond.
The two Baton Rouge police officers who scuffled with Sterling were responding to a caller’s complaint that Sterling had threatened the caller with a gun outside the store, where Sterling was selling homemade music CDs, police said.
A police report says Sterling was jolted with a stun gun after he didn’t comply with the officers’ commands to place his hands on the hood of a car. The report, signed by a Baton Rouge police detective, also says the officers saw the butt of a gun in one of Sterling’s pants pockets and saw him try to reach for the gun before he was shot.
The officers, Blane Salamoni and Howie Lake II, have been placed on administrative leave — a standard department procedure.
Police Chief Carl Dabadie Jr. said Sterling was armed but didn’t specify the type of weapon. The convenience store’s owner, Abdullah Muflahi, has said Sterling wasn’t holding a gun during the shooting but that he saw officers remove one from his pocket afterward.
Police said they have dash-cam video, bodycam video and store surveillance footage of the shooting, but none of it has been released.
MICHAEL KUNZELMAN
