The district attorney in East Baton Rouge, Louisiana, recused himself Monday from the case surrounding the fatal police shooting of Alton Sterling after announcing that he had a “personal relationship” with the parents of an officer involved in the shooting.
Video captured by a cell phone showed police detaining and fatally shooting Sterling, a 37-year-old black man, outside a convenience store last week. The investigation into the incident was almost immediately passed on to the Justice Department.
District Attorney Hillar Moore didn’t name the officer involved in the shooting that he was familiar with, nor did he explicitly say how he knew the officer’s parents. The officers involved in the shooting have been identified as Howie Lake II and Blane Salamoni.
Moore said recusing himself from the case was the “only and proper decision to make.”
“I’ve been involved in the law enforcement business for 42 years,” he said. “And the bulk of those years I’ve known the parents of one of these officers.”
Moore said his office would get involved in prosecuting the incident if the Justice Department’s investigation found that there were possible state violations.
