Judge rules in favor of Alton Sterling protesters at meeting

Baton Rouge officials violated the First Amendment rights of activists who were thrown out of a Metro Council meeting in 2017 for speaking about the police shooting of Alton Sterling after being warned not to, a federal judge ruled.

The lawsuit stemmed from a meeting held about a year after Sterling, a Black man, was killed by a Baton Rouge police officer. The week before the meeting, federal prosecutors had decided not to pursue a civil rights case against the officers involved, prompting civil rights activists to organize a protest during the meeting.

Michael McClanahan, head of Louisiana’s NAACP, and Eugene Collins, a Baton Rouge resident who later joined the group, sued in December 2017 after being among six people forcibly removed during the chaotic Metro Council meeting.

The plain