Alton Sterling

Family of Alton Sterling Accepts $4.5 Million Settlement From Baton Rouge in Fatal Police Shooting

Sterling, a Black man, was selling CDs outside a convenience store when he was fatally shot in 2016

Pall bearers carry the casket of Alton Sterling to his gravesite at the Mount Pilgrim Benevolent Society Cemetery July 15, 2016 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Sterling was shot July 5 outside a Baton Rouge convenience store in an encounter with police that was caught on video.
Gerald Herbert-Pool/Getty Images

The family of a Black man who was fatally shot by police in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, announced Friday it has settled a lawsuit against the city for $4.5 million, NBC reports.

Alton Sterling was 37 when he was fatally shot by an officer in 2016. His family filed the suit the next year.

Lawyers for Sterling's relatives said that the settlement would benefit his five children and involve "significant policy changes" for Baton Rouge officers.

"Our hope is that these policy changes, which focus on de-escalation, providing verbal warnings prior to using deadly force and prohibiting officers from both using chokeholds and firing into moving vehicles, will ensure that no other family has to endure the trauma and heartbreak that Mr. Sterling’s family went through and will create a better future going forward for Baton Rouge residents," the lawyers said in a statement.

Sharon Weston Broome, the mayor-president of the city, echoed those remarks, saying in a statement, "As a community, we must work together to implement changes in policy and in our community to ensure that no other families in Baton Rouge will endure this loss, trauma, or heartbreak."

Read the full story at NBCNews.com

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