Christopher LeDay, the man who filmed the video footage of Alton Sterling’s death, was arrested less than 24 hours after he posted the video online and is now being turned away from work.

Alton Sterling was killed at the hands of police on July 5th in front of a convenience store after a homeless man called 911 to report that he had a gun. Sterling was thrown to the ground on his back and seemed to be completely immobile with the officers pinning him down, but one officer yelled that Sterling had a gun on him. Within seconds, an officer had shot and killed Sterling and the whole event was captured on film.

LeDay posted the video on social media to raise awareness and bring justice for Alton’s death, who many said had a “big heart” and “gave back to the community.” However, when LeDay was at work the next day, he was arrested on the spot for alleged assault and battery.

When speaking with WSB-TV, LeDay’s lawyer, Tiffany Simmons, pointed out that:

“[The police] never had a warrant for an assault. My client has never had any criminal history.”

In the 26 hours that LeDay spent in jail, the cops never produced a warrant to justify their arrest. When no warrant was produced, police then told Simmons that he was being held for unresolved traffic tickets.

LeDay was released after paying the tickets and attempted to return to work at Dobbins Air Force, where he was turned away at the gate for a supposed issue with “security clearance.”

According to LeDay, his supervisor already knew about the traffic tickets before he was hired just six weeks before his arrest. This means that the traffic tickets could not have been the reason that the base was now turning him away.

Simmons said,

“He should not be penalized or possibly retaliated against, he should not be embarrassed at his place of employment for doing what is right.”

LeDay is not the only one that was harassed by police following Sterling’s death. Abdullah Maflahi, the owner of Triple S Food Mart, the store that Sterling was killed in front of, was held for four hours in a hot police car following the incident.

Maflahi filmed what became known as the “second video” on his cell phone of Sterling’s death, and he was thrown in the back of the cop car afterwards. He was let out to go to the bathroom only once during that time, at which point police instructed him to go out in public on a neighboring building’s wall.

He said that many people were walking by because of the commotion and many suspected he had been arrested as well. He was taken to the station where he was isolated from the other witnesses so he could make a statement and then thrown back in the cop car to be driven back to his store.

Maflahi said,

“They violated my rights. I was just a witness to a horrible scene [that] left me traumatized and kind of emotionally unstable.”

Police had confiscated the phone but didn’t know there was video footage on it, so Maflahi released it the next day.

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