Several police officers shot in Baton Rouge
The Iraq war veteran who shot three policemen dead in Louisiana’s capital methodically targeted the officers for assassination, authorities said on Monday, as America confronted racially charged gun violence against law enforcement for the second time this month.
During an update on the July 17, 2016, ambush in Baton Rouge, police described how video footage showed the former U.S. Marine Corps sergeant, Gavin Eugene Long, 29, hunting down police officers even as he bypassed civilians he encountered.
The carnage came to an abrupt end less than 10 minutes after it began when Long himself was shot dead by a police marksman, firing from a position about 100 yards away.
Police said they believe that Long, armed with two rifles and a pistol, had intended to make his way to the headquarters of the Baton Rouge Police Department a short distance away to take additional lives.
“There is no doubt whatsoever that these officers were intentionally targeted and assassinated,” Louisiana State Police Superintendent Colonel Mike Edmonson told reporters. “It was a calculated act against those who work to protect this community every single day.”
The ambush came 10 days after a similar attack that left five police officers dead in Dallas and nearly two weeks after police in Baton Rouge fatally shot a 37-year-old black man, Alton Sterling, who was selling CDs outside a convenience store, igniting nationwide protests.
Police declined to say whether the attack by Long, who was black, was racially motivated. Two of the lawmen killed on Sunday were white, and a third was black. Three other officers were wounded. One them was hospitalized in critical condition, described as fighting for his life with gunshots to his head and stomach. (Reuters)
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