title:  Store Owner Where Alton Sterling Was Killed Suing Baton Rouge Police
text: The plot is definitely thickening when it comes to the horrific death of an African-American man at the hands of two white police officers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Abdullah Muflahi owns the Triple S Food Mart, where the events of that fateful night took place. Now, he has filed a lawsuit against the police. The suit alleges that in the aftermath of the murder of Alton Sterling, whom Muflahi allowed to sell his CD s out front of the store, Muflahi was taken into custody like a common criminal, where the cops took his cell phone, along with surveillance video of the shooting. All of this was done without a warrant, which is definitely illegal, and reeks of a cover-up. The suit says of what happened: At all times defendants knew that plaintiff Muflahi was only a witness to the events at his store and that being a witness did not entitle police to hold plaintiff in custody or seize or commandeer his store and store equipment. Of course, the cops are not talking about these new developments. Muflahi is suing the cops who shot Sterling, as well as the city of Baton Rouge itself. Also named in the lawsuit are the investigating officers and the Baton Rouge police chief. There was no warrant for any of the store s surveillance footage until roughly five hours after the cops murdered Alton Sterling, so they had no right to immediately take that footage, and at no point should Abdullah Muflahi been taken into custody for any reason. He was a witness to a crime committed by the Baton Rouge police. He is not the criminal here.The document that requested the warrant claimed that Sterling did not put his hands on the hood of a car when he was told to do so, and therefore tasers were used. They saw what they believed to be a gun sticking out of Sterling s pocket, and therefore they tased him. Now, anyone with knowledge of tasers knows that they incapacitate the average person pretty well. There was no need to shoot and kill him, but of course the cops claim otherwise: When the subject attempted to reach for the gun from his pocket, the officers fired their police-issued duty weapon at the subject to stop the threat. I d be willing to bet they erased what footage they could, along with any video on the cell phone they unlawfully took from Abdullah Muflahi. It will be just as doctored as the stories they are telling regarding the shooting itself. This is nothing more than the police doing their damndest to keep their murderous brothers in blue out of an indictment and possible prison time.Featured image via Mark Wallheiser/Getty Images