Man Killed in Controversial Louisiana Police Shooting had Criminal Record

Alton Sterling, 37, of Baton Rouge, LA, who was killed Tuesday morning by an officer responding to a call of a man brandishing a gun had a criminal record. 

Baton Rouge newspapaper the Advocate reports that records from the 19th Judicial District Court show that in August 2015 the East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office issued a warrant for the arrest of an Alton Sterling who had registered as a convicted sex offender to live at the center at the Brookstown address. Sterling was convicted of one count of carnal knowledge of a juvenile in Sept. 2000, according to the warrant.

While Sterling had registered at the address in July, a probation officer who checked on him in August was told by the center manager that Sterling hadn’t lived there for two weeks.

The DA’s office filed a failure to register as a sex offender charge against Sterling in April.

Sterling’s court record shows he was accused of several crimes dating back to 1996. He’d pleaded guilty to aggravated battery, simple criminal damage to property and unauthorized entry, as well as domestic abuse battery. His longest sentence appeared to come in 2009, when he was sentenced to five years on possessing marijuana with the intent to distribute and illegally carrying a weapon with a controlled dangerous substance.