The two Baton Rouge, La., police officers involved in the fatal shooting of Alton Sterling have been identified as Howie Lake II and Blane Salamoni, The Advertiser reports.
According to The Advertiser, Lake is a three-year veteran on the force, while Salamoni has served four years with the department.
Lake was one of six officers put on paid administrative leave following the 2014 nonfatal shooting of convicted sex offender Kevin Knight, The Advertiser notes. According to the report, Lake and the other officers were in vehicle pursuit of Knight, a 28-year-old black man, who was fleeing from police after someone accused him of sending threatening texts.
Knight eventually crashed his vehicle into a home after the chase and reportedly began firing at officers after exiting the vehicle. Officers returned fire and hit him in the torso, the Advertiser reports.
In April 2015, both officers were presented with a "life saving" award, according to the Baton Rouge Police Department's Facebook page, the Advertiser reports.
Meanwhile, the New York Daily News reports, Salamoni's father-in-law, James Durdin, criticized Sterling for the shooting, saying that he "drew a gun" on the cops who had him pinned to the ground.
“It burns my you-know-what when it’s—usually the black people—that try to make an agenda out of this,” Durdin told the Daily News. “What I’d like to see is them with no police at all, so they can know what it’s like not to have them. … The majority of [cops] would never be abusive. Does anyone give a you-know-what about that? We’ll have social chaos [without cops].”
Durdin said his son-in-law is a third-generation officer who loves being a police officer and wants to become a detective.
He said that his son-in-law is "well-trained" and did "what he's trained to do."
"[It's] a dirty shame that things like this end up in the news, ’cause there’s something going around the country and it’s anti-police," Durdin added.
Durdin also said that he was "totally against" protesters.
Read more at The Advertiser and the New York Daily News.