Baton Rouge DA Refuses to Prosecute Protesters

Baton Rouge DA refuses to prosecute protesters.

Baton Rouge DA Refuses to Prosecute Protesters

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards promised consequences for protesters who were blocking roadways. After all, blocking a roadway results in huge financial losses, inconvenience, and is life-threatening when even ambulances can’t get through. East Baton Rouge District Attorney Hillar Moore, however, decided that he thought that this whole blocking roads business was quite OK, and he wasn’t going to prosecute anybody for blocking roads.

NOLA.com reports that the DA refuses to prosecute:

In the days following the fatal shooting of Alton Sterling, Baton Rouge police arrested nearly 200 people who had taken to the streets to protest what many saw as the department’s racially based abuse of power. The arrests came after Gov. John Bel Edwards warned the protesters that if they blocked public roadways, they would face consequences.

East Baton Rouge District Attorney Hillar Moore, however, announced Friday (July 15) that after reviewing 185 incidents from July 8-11, he would not prosecute anyone charged with only the misdemeanor crime of obstruction of a roadway or public passage. This lets approximately 100 protesters off the hook.

“These particular cases only involve facts where the person arrested failed to comply with an officer’s direction to leave the roadway or public passage,” Moore said in a statement.

Only four protesters remain in jail for “other matters,” Moore said.

“The District Attorney’s staff continues to perform reviews of each individual arrest arising from any protest and advises that persons who have engaged in repeated offenses, assaults, resisting arrest, or other violent acts will continue to face prosecution,” he said.

Refusing to hold these people accountable for their crimes is effectively granting them permission to continue to commit crime; not just the crime of blocking roadways, but other crimes as well. They will continue to push limits, and if you retreat when then push, then they will just keep pushing harder.

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