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Police Chief Apologizes For His Department Hiring The Cop Who Killed Alton Sterling

The 37-year-old was shot on July 5, 2016.

Louisiana Police Chief Murphy Paul is apologizing for hiring a former police officer who shot and killed Alton Sterling in 2016.

On Thursday (August 1) during a news conference in Baton Rouge, Paul and a police lawyer detailed the repeated problems with Officer Blane Salamoni that should have raised red flags during deliberation over whether to hire him to the police force.

While Paul was not the police chief at the time of the shooting, he expressed his regret, “I want to apologize to the family of Alton Sterling and also to his kids. We’re sorry because he (Salamoni) should’ve never been hired.”

Leo Hamilton, the police lawyer, said Salamoni had been arrested for a physical altercation prior to him joining the police department, which normally would have prevented him from being hired. 

He also failed to disclose the arrest on his application. The shooting, according to Hamilton, was the culmination of a documented pattern of “unprofessional behavior, police violence, marginalization, polarization and implicit bias by a man who should have never ever wore this uniform.”

Salamoni was never prosecuted by state or federal officials for killing Alton Sterling. He was fired by the department in 2018, but after an appeal of the firing by Salamoni, a settlement was reached to where he would retroactively be able to resign instead of being fired.

Officials did not provide any information about Salamoni’s pre-employment arrest. The Advocate newspaper, however, described a 2009 incident in Baton Rouge where Salamoni was detained by police after an off-duty sheriff’s deputy saw him shove a woman at a bar.

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