A decorated former US Marine sergeant opened fire on police in Baton Rouge on Sunday, killing three officers, nearly two weeks after the fatal police shooting of a black man there sparked nationwide protests, including one shattered by the massacre of five Dallas policemen.
The suspect, dressed in black and armed with a rifle, was himself shot to death minutes later in a gunfight with police who converged on the scene of a confrontation that Mayor Kip Holden said began as an “ambush-style” attack on officers. The suspect was black.
Two Baton Rouge Police Department officers and one sheriff’s deputy were killed, and one sheriff’s deputy was critically wounded. Another police officer and one other deputy suffered less severe wounds and were expected to survive.
Colonel Mike Edmonson, superintendent of the Louisiana State Police, told a news conference the gunman was believed to have acted alone, contrary to early reports that police may have been looking for other shooters.
It was not immediately clear whether there was a link between Sunday’s bloodshed and unrest over the police killings of two black men under questionable circumstances earlier this month – Alton Sterling, 37, in Baton Rouge on July 5, and Philando Castile, 32, near St. Paul, Minnesota, on July 6.
Police did not name the suspect. But a US government official told Reuters the gunman had been identified as Gavin Long, of Kansas City, Missouri, and was black. He was reported by other media to be 29 years old.
According to Long’s military record, released by the Pentagon, he served in the Marines from August 2005 until August 2010, achieving the rank of sergeant. Listed as a data network specialist for the Marines, he was deployed to Iraq from June 2008 until January 2009, earning several medals and commendations.
Authorities declined to offer a possible motive for Sunday’s attack in Louisiana’s capital.
A second government source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said investigators had reason to believe an emergency 911 call may have been used to lure police into harm’s way.
Edmonson said several officers came under fire as police were responding to a report of a man dressed in black standing behind a store holding a rifle shortly before 9am.
In the ensuing pandemonium caught on a recording of emergency radio traffic, police are repeatedly heard reporting:
“Officer down” and “deputy down” as officers swarmed the area searching for and ultimately confronting the gunman.
The episode was over in about eight minutes, according to Edmonson’s account. (REUTERS)