A day after police fatally shot Alton Sterling in the parking lot of a convenience store, concentric rings of protesters surrounded the site. In the outermost ring, young men drove cars around the block with speakers blaring: “Fuck the police.”

In the next ring in, the mood was almost celebratory. Neighbours waved signs and told stories about 37-year-old Sterling, and even laughed. They handed out snacks and drinks.

Further in, banks of television cameras ringed local community leaders, who pleaded with the crowds to remain peaceful.

And at the centre, near the door to the Triple S Food Mart, a trio of devastated people stood and stared.



The last person to speak to Sterling was Tawandra Carr, who lives near the store. She had a playful relationship with Sterling, who sold CDs and DVDs on a fold-out table in the parking lot.

At about 12.30am on Tuesday, Carr approached him in the parking lot, and the two pretended to argue before breaking into laughter. Sterling seemed in a good mood, she said – neither knew that an anonymous caller had just told police Sterling had threatened him with a pistol, and officers were on their way.

Sterling had packed up his wares for the night but Carr persuaded him to sell her a bootleg copy of Central Intelligence, a new film starring Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart. He charged her two dollars.

Suddenly – “quicker than you could blink”, Carr said – two police cars arrived from opposite directions and pulled into the parking lot.

Carr said two officers pushed past her, and made straight for Sterling, who seemed baffled. “He just kept saying: ‘What did I do? What did I do?’” she said.

Tawandra Carr, talking about her final moments with Alton Sterling. Photograph: Matthew Teague/The Guardian

Without answering, she said, the officers – 28-year-old Blane Salamoni and 29-year-old Howie Lake – went for their Tasers and shocked Sterling.

“He didn’t go down,” Carr said. “He was still saying: ‘What did I do?’”

Carr’s account, at that point, starts to coincide with a video made by a bystander. It shows the officers tackle Sterling on to the hood of a car, then to the ground where they pin him. In the midst of overlapping yelling and cursing one of the officers cries out: “He’s got a gun!” and both officers draw weapons.

By this time another witness, Abdullah Muflahi, had arrived. Muflahi has owned the Triple S since 2010, and had always allowed Sterling to hawk his music and movies in the parking lot. Sterling had a criminal record, but a lot of people in the Fairfield neighbourhood had a record of some sort, and Sterling seemed harmless. The two had become friends.

Muflahi stepped out of his store just as police arrived. He pulled his phone from his pocket and started recording. The officers kneeled on top of Sterling. There was a cluster of two or three shots, and the officers rolled off.

The police yelled: “Get on the ground,” Muflahi said. “Why were they telling him to get on the ground? He was already on the ground. They had shot him three times.”

There was a second burst of three shots, and as Sterling lay with blood pooling on his chest, an officer appeared to reach into Sterling’s pocket and pull out what Muflahi said was a gun.

“As soon as I finished the video, I put my phone in my pocket,” Muflahi said. “I knew they would take it from me, if they knew I had it.”

In short order, he said, police confiscated the security camera footage from his store. So he kept his mobile phone video a secret. “Otherwise, what proof do I have?”

Veda Washington, Sterling’s aunt, arrived later. She had helped raise Sterling, and when Sterling’s mother died in 1996 when he was a teenager, she took him in.

Sterling’s aunt, Veda Washington, being consoled by friends. Photograph: Matthew Teague/The Guardian

When she arrived at the scene she alternated between chanting now-familiar slogans like “Black lives matter” and wailing in mourning for the nephew she regarded as a son.

“I’ve been sick ever since they murdered him,” she cried.

The three people at the centre of the scene all shared one thing: they can’t sleep.

“I’ve tried to sleep but I can’t. I just keep replaying it in my mind,” Muflahi said. “Seeing my friend shot. Hearing the police yelling. Seeing his eyes roll back in his head.”

Carr said she can’t close her eyes without feeling a weight of guilt descend on her. “He wouldn’t have stayed if I hadn’t asked him for that stupid movie,” she said. She leaned against the wall of the convenience store, and collapsed into tears. “He would be alive now.”

The officers, Salamoni and Lake, have been placed on paid administrative leave, as is standard practice for officers involved in shootings.

Salamoni’s father is a high-ranking member of the Baton Rouge police – commander of the department’s special operations division. In 2009, before he became a police officer, Salamoni was charged with disturbing the peace, but the charge was dropped.

The other officer, Lake, was involved in another shooting in 2014, when investigators say he and five other officers returned fire at a suspect.

Both officers say their body cameras fell off before Tuesday’s shooting.

On Wednesday morning, the Louisiana governor, John Bel Edwards, announced the state was handing over the investigation to federal authorities after calls for transparency from community leaders and Sterling’s family.

By Wednesday night the mood among protesters at the Triple S was, at first, tense. People expressed anger, disillusionment with the police, and fear.

Someone set up a makeshift podium in the parking lot and a public address system. The protest organisers played gospel music, and the mood of the crowd quickly shifted as people started to sing along.

Veda Washington climbed up on the soda crates that served as a stage, and took the microphone.

“I was OK until I saw that second video,” she said. “I’m mad. I’m so mad. I’m angry.”

The crowd cried out in affirmation.

“But I’m not so angry that I will cuss out the police. Not so mad that I’ll go into the street. Let’s be peaceful in our protest.”