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Baton Rouge Shooting Leaves 3 Officers Dead and 3 Wounded Baton Rouge Shooting Jolts a Nation on Edge
(about 2 hours later)
BATON ROUGE, La. — Three law enforcement officers were fatally shot and three others wounded on Sunday in Baton Rouge, La., the authorities said, less than two weeks after a black man was killed by the police here, sparking nightly protests. BATON ROUGE, La. — A gunman fatally shot three law enforcement officers and wounded three others here on Sunday before being killed in a shootout with the police. The attack’s motive was unclear as of Sunday evening, leaving an anxious nation to wonder whether the anger over recent police shootings had prompted another act of retaliation against officers.
The gunman, who was identified as Gavin Long of Kansas City, Mo., was killed by the police. Mr. Long was a Marine who served six months in Iraq, according to his service record. He joined the corps in 2005, served five years and was made a sergeant in 2008. What was clearer were the waves of worry that rushed across the United States as sketchy details emerged of a bloody melee Sunday morning on a workaday stretch of highway in Louisiana’s capital — a city that had already been rocked by the police shooting on July 5 of a black man, a purported murder plot against the police that was apparently foiled, and many racially charged nights of protest and rage.
The police said initially that they were looking for other possible suspects, but the superintendent of the Louisiana State Police, Col. Michael Edmonson, said at a news conference that the person who attacked the officers had been shot and killed at the scene. Some details about the gunman began to emerge late Sunday: Officials identified him as Gavin Long, an African-American military veteran. According to military records released by the Marine Corps, Mr. Long served as a data network specialist and was a sergeant when he left the Marines in 2010. He enlisted in his hometown, Kansas City, Mo., in 2005, and was deployed to Iraq from June 2008 to January 2009, his records show. They also show a number of commendations, including the Good Conduct Medal.
“There is not an active shooter scenario in Baton Rouge,” Colonel Edmonson said in a day punctuated by rumors and misinformation. Around the country, political leaders, police officers and activists focused their attention, and their mourning, on the slain officers. They also sought to calm the tensions that welled up this month over the killings of black men by the police and the retaliatory violence directed at officers, including the July 7 killings of five officers in downtown Dallas, carried out by a black man who said he wanted to kill white police officers.
State and local officials speaking at the news conference Sunday afternoon did not address whether the police were targeted specifically or whether they were shot as they tried to intervene during a crime. However, they acknowledged the tensions in the country this month surrounding the killings of black men by police officers, and the retaliatory violence directed at law enforcement. Just five days earlier, President Obama was in Dallas for a memorial service, and on Sunday afternoon he was at the White House, again addressing the nation after an assault on officers. He said the killings were “an attack on all of us.”
Sunday’s shooting is the latest episode in a month of violence and extraordinary racial tension in the country, and took place after Baton Rouge officers on July 5 fatally shot Alton B. Sterling, a black man who was selling CDs outside a convenience store here. The night after Mr. Sterling was killed, a black man was killed by the police during a traffic stop in a St. Paul suburb, and then the next night, five police officers were killed by a gunman in Dallas who said he wanted to kill police officers, particularly white officers. “We have our divisions, and they are not new,” he said, noting that the country was probably in store for some heated political speech during the 2016 Republican National Convention this week in Cleveland.
Colonel Edmonson said that a call came in to police dispatch early Sunday reporting “a guy carrying a weapon” near the Hammond Aire Plaza shopping center on Airline Highway. “Everyone right now focus on words and actions that can unite this country rather than divide it further,” the president said. “We need to temper our words and open our hearts, all of us.”
Around 8:40 a.m., law enforcement officers observed the man, wearing all black and holding a rifle, outside a beauty supply store, he said. Within the next four minutes, there were reports of shots fired and officers struck, said Colonel Edmonson, whose agency is taking the lead on the investigation assisted by local and federal investigators. Gov. John Bel Edwards of Louisiana said: “The violence, the hatred just has to stop.”
Mark Clements, who lives near the shopping center, said he was in his backyard when he heard shots ring out. “I heard probably 10 to 12 gunshots go off,” he said in a telephone interview. “We heard a bunch of sirens and choppers and everything since then.” State and local officials speaking at a news conference here Sunday afternoon did not address whether the law enforcement officers who were killed and wounded — three members of the Baton Rouge Police Department and three deputies from the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Department — had been lured to the scene. Police officials said there had been a call about a man carrying a gun.
Avery Hall, 17, a worker at a nearby carwash, said he was on his way to work when the gunfire erupted. “I was about to pull in at about 8:45 and we got caught in the crossfire,” he said. “I heard a lot of gunshots — a lot. I saw police ducking and shooting. I stopped and pulled into the Dodge dealership. I got out and heard more gunshots. We ducked.” Officials initially believed that there might have been other possible suspects involved in the attack, but the superintendent of the Louisiana State Police, Col. Michael D. Edmonson, said at a news conference that it was the act of a lone gunman.
On the Police Department’s dispatch radio, a voice could be heard shouting: “Shots fired! Officer down! Shots fired. Officer down! Got a city officer down.” “There is not an active shooter scenario in Baton Rouge,” he said.
At 8:48 a.m., officers fired at the suspect, killing him, Colonel Edmonson said. Colonel Edmonson said a call came in to police dispatch early Sunday reporting “a guy carrying a weapon” in the vicinity of the Hammond Aire Plaza shopping center on Airline Highway — a commercial thoroughfare dotted with car washes, car dealerships and chain stores that cuts through a leafy residential neighborhood. It is also about a mile from the Baton Rouge Police Department headquarters, where protesters had held numerous rallies since July 5, when the police here fatally shot an African-American man, Alton B. Sterling, after a confrontation in front of a convenience store.
All told, six law enforcement officers were shot, he said. Three of them died — two from the Police Department and one from the sheriff’s office — one sheriff’s deputy remained in critical condition, and the remaining two were in stable condition, he said. Around 8:40 a.m., law enforcement officers observed the man, wearing all black and holding a rifle, outside a beauty supply store, the colonel said. In the next four minutes, there were reports of shots fired and officers struck, said Colonel Edmonson, whose agency will take the lead on the investigation, helped by local and federal investigators.
Asked if investigators believed that the police had been targeted, Kip Holden, the mayor-president of East Baton Rouge Parish, noted that the police were responding to a report of a man with a weapon. Louisiana is an open-carry state. Mark Clements, who lives near the shopping center, said in a telephone interview that he was in his backyard when he heard shots ring out. “I heard probably 10 to 12 gunshots go off,” he said. “We heard a bunch of sirens and choppers and everything since then.”
“Based upon that, it would not seem that they were targeted,” Mr. Holden said. “They responded to a call that said there’s this guy walking along the street in these dark clothes, carrying a rifle.” Avery Hall, 17, who works at a nearby carwash, said he was on his way to work when the gunfire erupted. ”I was about to pull in at about 8:45, and we got caught in the crossfire,” he said. “I heard a lot of gunshots — a lot. I saw police ducking and shooting. I stopped and pulled into the Dodge dealership. I got out and heard more gunshots. We ducked.”
Speaking at the news conference, Gov. John Bel Edwards of Louisiana called the shooting “an absolutely unspeakable, henious attack.” On the police dispatch radio, a voice could be heard shouting: “Shots fired! Officer down! Shots fired. Officer down! Got a city officer down.”
“The violence, the hatred just has to stop,” he said. “And it’s at times like this I wish the command of the English language that I have were more adequate to the task to convey the full range of emotions that I am feeling and to express them on behalf of the state of Louisiana.” Around 8:48 a.m., officers fired at the suspect, killing him, Colonel Edmonson said.
Just five days after traveling to a memorial service in Dallas for the five police officers killed there, President Obama addressed the killings of police officers on Sunday afternoon. In remarks from the White House, he said they were “an attack on all of us.” On Sunday afternoon, officials said that two of the slain officers were Baton Rouge city police officers, and that the third was from the Sheriff’s Department. One city police officer and two sheriff’s deputies were wounded, including one who was in critical condition.
“We have our divisions and they are not new,” he said, noting that the country was probably in store for some heated language during the Republican National Convention this week in Cleveland. The shooting was the latest episode in a month of violence and extraordinary racial tension in the country. The night after the police shooting of Mr. Sterling, who was selling CDs outside the convenience store here, a black man was killed by the police during a traffic stop in a St. Paul suburb. The next night, five police officers were killed by the gunman in Dallas.
“Everyone right now focus on words and actions that can unite this country rather than divide it further,” he said. “We need to temper our words,” he added, “and open our hearts, all of us.” Violence against the police, Governor Edwards said, “doesn’t address any injustice, perceived or real.”
Shortly before 5 p.m. on Sunday, about half a dozen police vehicles raced up the quiet tree-lined street that is listed as the address for the suspect. He continued, “It is just an injustice in and of itself.”
The officers blocked off the street, ordering reporters out of the area and advising neighbors to stay indoors. Several officers with long rifles and shotguns approached the house and as they did, an unidentified man came out of the house voluntarily and was taken into custody. Speaking at the news conference, the police chief here, Carl Dabadie Jr., called the shooting “senseless” and asked people to pray for the officers and their families.
“I’m shocked,” said Simone Wilson, 29, a neighbor. She said she did not know Mr. Long well and her only encounter with him was an occasional wave to each other. But she said he appeared to be close to his family, which included children. “We are going to get through this as a family,” he said, “and we’re going to get through this together.”
A spokesman for the University of Alabama, Chris Bryant, said on Sunday that Mr. Long had been a student at the school in Tuscaloosa, Ala., in 2012. The police in Baton Rouge had in recent days announced that they were investigating a plot by four people to target police officers, and they cited the threat to explain why their presence at local protests, which had been light at first, had grown heavy.
The university police, Mr. Bryant said, had no interactions with Mr. Long during his single semester as a student, when he made the dean’s list. The police said a 17-year-old was arrested this month after running from a burglary of the Cash American Pawn Shop in Baton Rouge. He and three others, including a 12-year-old arrested on Friday, were believed to have broken into the pawnshop through the roof. It was unclear whether the burglary was connected to Sunday’s shooting.
The police in Baton Rouge had in recent days announced that they were investigating a plot by four people to shoot at police officers, and they cited the threat to explain the heavy police presence at protests. Chief Dabadie told reporters at the time that the 17-year-old had told the police “that the reason the burglary was being done was to harm police officers.”
The police said a 17-year-old was arrested after running from a burglary of the Cash American Pawn Shop in Baton Rouge. He and three others, including a 12-year-old arrested on Friday, were believed to have broken into the pawnshop through the roof. It was unclear whether the burglary was in any way connected to Sunday’s shooting. The explanation, however, was met with skepticism on social media sites, where many people believed the report was concocted by the police to justify their militarized response to the protests after the death of Mr. Sterling.
The police chief here, Carl Dabadie Jr., told reporters at the time that the 17-year-old had told the police “that the reason the burglary was being done was to harm police officers.” “That was bull — it was a scare tactic to calm things down,” Arthur Reed of Stop the Killing, the group that first released the video of Mr. Sterling’s shooting, said on Sunday. “And it worked. I ain’t going out there if people are going to be out there trying to kill police.”
The explanation, however, was met with skepticism on social media sites, where many people believed the report was concocted by the police to justify their militarized response to the protest. The intense protests had started to lose steam. Sima Atri, a social justice lawyer who represented some of the protesters who were arrested last weekend, said earlier in the week that many protesters were afraid to hit the streets after the authorities’ aggressive approach last weekend, which included nearly 200 arrests. (Nearly 100 charges were dropped on Friday.)
“That was bull; it was a scare tactic to calm things down,” Arthur Reed, of Stop the Killing, the group that first released the video of Mr. Sterling’s shooting, said on Sunday. “And it worked. I ain’t going out there if people are going to be out there trying to kill police.” A protest on Saturday afternoon attracted less than a dozen people, who huddled on the side of the road under a tent to escape the blazing sun and flashed signs at passing cars. They were mostly white; large protests shortly after Mr. Sterling’s death had been nearly all black.
The intense protests after Mr. Sterling’s shooting were beginning to lose steam. Sima Atri, a social justice lawyer who represented some of the protesters who were arrested last weekend, said earlier in the week that many protesters were too afraid to hit the streets after the authorities’ heavy-handed approach last weekend.
The killings in Baton Rouge on Sunday led several activists, who were already being criticized as the impetus for the attack in Dallas, to issue statements reasserting their opposition to the use of violence. Cat Brooks, the co-founder of the Anti Police-Terror Project, cautioned against criticizing activists in the wake of Sunday’s killing of police officers in Baton Rouge.
“I think anytime that there’s a loss of life — black, white, police officer, otherwise — it’s cause for us to take a moment and be sad about that life,” she said. “And I think we have to be really careful about where these shootings of police officers steer the conversation. I think it’s absurd to insinuate that a movement that is doing nothing more than demanding that the war on black life come to an end is in any way responsible for these police officers getting shot.”
Quinyetta McMillon, the mother of Mr. Sterling’s son Cameron Sterling, issued a statement that called the killings of Baton Rouge officers “despicable.”
“As my son Cameron and I have said from the beginning, all we want is peace,” she said. “We reject violence of any kind directed at members of law enforcement or citizens.”
Louisiana has lately taken a harder line to defend its police officers, who this year will become a protected class under the state’s hate crimes law.Louisiana has lately taken a harder line to defend its police officers, who this year will become a protected class under the state’s hate crimes law.
“I’ve read various accounts of people who I would say were employing a deliberate campaign to terrorize our officers,” State Representative Lance Harris, a Republican and the author of the proposal, said this year. “I just wanted to give an extra level of protection to the people who protect us.” The killing of the officers on Sunday occurred as hundreds of police officers trained in crowd-control tactics braced for protests outside the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.
Mr. Harris’s proposal, which the Legislature overwhelmingly approved and Mr. Edwards signed in May, will make it a hate crime to select a victim “because of actual or perceived employment as a law enforcement officer, firefighter or emergency medical services personnel.” Cat Brooks, the co-founder of the Anti Police-Terror Project, cautioned against criticizing activists after the attack on Sunday in Baton Rouge.
The shooting in Baton Rouge took place as protesters and Republicans were arriving in Cleveland for the Republican National Convention. Steve Thacker, 57, of Westlake, Ohio, stood in Cleveland’s Public Square on Sunday holding a semiautomatic AR-15-style assault rifle as news broke that several officers had been killed in Baton Rouge. “I think anytime that there’s a loss of life — black, white, police officer, otherwise — it’s cause for us to take a moment and be sad about that life,” she said. “And I think we have to be really careful about where these shootings of police officers steer the conversation. I think it’s absurd to insinuate that a movement that is doing nothing more than demanding that the war on black life come to an end is in any way responsible for these police officers getting shot.”
After the shooting in Dallas, Stephen Loomis, the president of the Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s Association, urged people not to take their guns anywhere near Cleveland’s downtown during the convention because officers were already in a “heightened state.” After the shooting in Dallas, Stephen Loomis, the president of the Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s Association, urged people not to bring their guns anywhere near Cleveland’s downtown during the convention because officers were in a “heightened state.”
When asked about Mr. Loomis’s comments and the Baton Rouge shooting, Mr. Thacker said despite the shooting, he wanted to make a statement and show that people can continue to openly carry their weapons. In Cleveland on Sunday, Steve Thacker, 57, of Westlake, Ohio, stood in the city’s Public Square holding a semiautomatic AR-15-style assault rifle — allowed under the state’s open-carry law — as news broke that several officers had been killed in Baton Rouge. When asked about Mr. Loomis’s comments and the Baton Rouge shooting,Mr. Thacker said that despite the attack, he wanted to make a statement and show that people could continue to openly carry their weapons.
“I pose no threat to anyone. I’m an American citizen. I’ve never been in trouble for anything,” said Mr. Thacker, an information technology engineer. “This is my time to come out and put my two cents worth in, albeit that it is a very strong statement.” “I pose no threat to anyone. I’m an American citizen. I’ve never been in trouble for anything,” said Mr. Thacker, an information technology engineer. “This is my time to come out and put my two cents’ worth in, albeit that it is a very strong statement.”