$4.5 Million Settlement in Police Killing of Alton Sterling, Lawyers Say

Several days after that, Mr. Salamoni, who had fired six shots at Mr. Sterling, was fired from the Baton Rouge Police Department, and Mr. Lake was suspended for three days.

After announcing those disciplinary actions, the Baton Rouge police released footage of Mr. Sterling’s arrest and his killing.

The body-camera video shows Mr. Salamoni repeatedly shouting profanities at Mr. Sterling, slamming him into a car, ordering Mr. Lake to use his Taser and threatening to shoot Mr. Sterling with a gun pointed at his head.

In September, the Baton Rouge Metro Council rejected a proposed $5 million settlement to resolve a lawsuit that Mr. Sterling’s children had filed against the city in 2017, which contended that the killing was part of a longstanding pattern of racism and excessive force within the Baton Rouge Police Department, The Advocate reported.

“After nearly five years, the people of Baton Rouge are finally one step closer to getting much-needed closure in this traumatic episode of our history,” Sharon Weston Broome, mayor-president of the Metro Council, said in a statement in February, after the council had approved the settlement. “Now we must continue the work of building a more fair and equitable community, where every citizen is treated justly, no matter their race or ethnicity.”

In their statement, the lawyers for Mr. Sterling’s family — L. Chris Stewart, Brandon DeCuir, Michael R.D. Adams, Justin Bamberg and Dale Glover — said that they were also grateful that Baton Rouge and the Police Department had made significant policy changes after Mr. Sterling’s death.

“Our hope is that these policy changes, which focus on de-escalation, providing verbal warnings prior to using deadly force and prohibiting officers from both using chokeholds and firing into moving vehicles, will ensure that no other family has to endure the trauma and heartbreak that Mr. Sterling’s family went through,” the lawyers said.