Mr. Sessions — who, in the first months of his tenure, ordered a broad review of federal agreements with law enforcement agencies — will oversee the outcomes of other cases, including those surrounding the deaths of Eric Garner, who was placed in a chokehold by a New York police officer, and 12-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland.

The bar for charging police officers with federal civil rights violations is extremely high, and prosecutions are rare. Even the Obama administration, which cultivated an aggressive reputation on such cases, declined to prosecute officers in several high-profile killings, most notably the 2014 shooting of Mr. Brown, and it saw challenges in bringing charges in Mr. Sterling’s death.

On Tuesday evening, around the Triple S Food Mart parking lot where Mr. Sterling was killed, people congregated in the same way they did last summer. Mr. Sterling’s face is painted near the entrance, with stuffed animals in front. Signs advertise specials on cigarettes and fried chicken, and another reads, “Stop the Killing.”

“I’m not surprised, because it happens all the time,” said Kosher Weber, 21, an African-American resident of Baton Rouge, her voice cracking in anger. “Where do things go from here? There’s no justice. There’s no nothing.”

Derrick Brody, 45, said: “Over and over again. They kill a human being, and they get away with it, just ’cause they got a blue suit.”