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Baton Rouge rejects $5 million settlement in Alton Sterling's wrongful death lawsuit

Baton Rouge rejects $5 million settlement in Alton Sterling's wrongful death lawsuit
Posted at 4:50 AM, Nov 06, 2020
and last updated 2020-11-06 05:50:47-05

BATON ROUGE, La. — The governing council in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, has again rejected a proposed $5 million settlement in a lawsuit over the death of Alton Sterling, a Black man fatally shot by a white police officer in 2016.

The 12-member East Baton Rouge Metro Council fell one vote short of the seven needed for approval Wednesday.

It was the council's third rejection of a possible settlement, and it makes a March 2021 trial more likely in the wrongful death lawsuit filed on behalf of Sterling's five children.

Sterling was shot six times on July 5, 2016, in a confrontation with police that was recorded on two cellphone videos and widely seen online.