Fired BRPD officer pleads no contest to simple battery
BATON ROUGE - The former Baton Rouge police officer involved in the shooting death of Alton Sterling in 2016 has pleaded no contest to a simple battery charge in a separate incident.
Blane Salamoni made the plea on October 22. His next court date is April 1, 2019.
The simple battery summons came from a June 2016 incident involving an armed suspect. WBRZ previously reported that Salamoni and other officers were responding to a domestic incident involving a suspect identified as "Mr. Brooks." Documents say, Brooks was tased and brought to the ground after he led police on a foot chase.
Video footage from the incident showed Salamoni slapping the handcuffs on the suspect's head. According to police, Salamoni "forcefully pulled Mr. Brooks to the ground and delivered multiple straight closed fist punches to Mr. Brooks' head until the other two officers were able to remove the weapon from his rear pocket."
He also displayed "unprofessional behavior" during other calls around that time.