Ex-US Marine kills three policemen in racially tense Baton Rouge

A decorated ex-US Marine serjeant 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, one of them shattered by the massacre of five Dallas policemen.

The Baton Rouge 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.

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, a 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.

Sunday’s bloodshed followed days of 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 Philander Castile, 32, near St. Paul, Minnesota, on July 6.

Police did not name the suspect. But a U.S. government official told media the gunman was identified as Gavin Long, of Kansas City, Missouri. Long, who was black, was reported by other media to be 29 years old.

-DECORATED MARINE-

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, 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 city with a long history of distrust between African-Americans and law enforcement that was further inflamed by Sterling’s slaying.

Social media postings linked to an individual named Gavin Long and a Kansas City address cordoned off by police on Sunday included a YouTube video posted July 10 saying he was fed up with mistreatment of blacks and suggesting that only violence and financial pressure would bring about change. He also said he was speaking from Dallas, where he had gone to join protests.

“It’s only fighting back or money. That’s all they care about,” he said to the camera. “Revenue and blood, revenue and blood, revenue and blood.”

In a separate video, he insists that should “anything happen” to him, he wanted his viewers to know he was “not affiliated” with any particular movement or group.

“I’m affiliated with the spirit of justice, nothing more nothing less,” he said. “I thought my own thoughts, I made my own decisions.”

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 Baton Rouge 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 9 a.m.

-CHAOTIC MOMENTS CAUGHT ON RADIO-

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. At least one of the three officers killed was known to be black.

President Barack Obama condemned the attack, vowed that justice would be done and urged Americans to focus on rhetoric and actions that united the country, rather than divided it.

“We need to temper our words and open our hearts, all of us,” Obama said in televised remarks from the White House.

Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards called the shootings an “unspeakable, heinous attack” that served no purpose.

“There simply is no place for more violence. That doesn’t help anyone, it doesn’t further the conversation, it doesn’t address any injustice, perceived or real. It is just an injustice in and of itself,” he told reporters in Baton Rouge.

Obama has sought to balance concerns about police abuses, largely against African-Americans, while paying tribute to fallen officers.

He attended a memorial service last week for the five Dallas policemen killed by a black former U.S. soldier who opened fire July 7 at the end of an otherwise peaceful protest denouncing the Sterling and Castile slayings.

Those two killings and the reprisal attack on Dallas police by a suspect who embraced militant black nationalism renewed tension over racial justice and gun violence, just as America’s presidential campaign was kicking into high gear. The Dallas gunman, Micah Johnson, 25, was killed by police deploying a bomb-carrying robot against him.

-CONVENTION CONCERNS-

The wave of violence has also heightened security concerns across the country, notably in Cleveland and Philadelphia, hosts to this week’s Republican National Convention and next week’s Democratic National Convention, respectively, which are expected to formally nominate Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton for the Nov. 8 election.

“We demand law and order,” Trump said in a Facebook posting on Sunday afternoon.

In a statement, Clinton urged Americans to “stand together to reject violence and strengthen our communities.”

The head of a Cleveland police union called on Ohio Governor John Kasich to declare a state of emergency and suspend laws allowing for the open carrying of firearms for the duration of the Republican convention.

Steve Loomis, president of the Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s Association, told media he was concerned about copycat shootings at the convention. A Kasich spokeswoman said the governor lacked authority to suspend the open-carry law.

Sunday’s shootings took place about a mile from the city’s police headquarters, where dozens of people were arrested this month while protesting Sterling’s death. The father of five was shot and killed at close quarters by police.

A witness to the Baton Rouge shootings, Brady Vancel, told CNN he saw a man dressed in black clothing and a ski-type mask running through a parking lot amid a hail of gunfire.

Vancel said the gunman “looked up and saw me. We stopped. I froze, he froze for a second, and he turned around and ran in the opposite direction the same time I turned around and ran in the opposite direction.”

Agencies