The three police officers shot dead in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, were deliberately “targeted and assassinated” by a US Marine Corps veteran who appeared to go out of his way to spare civilians during hi
The three police officers shot dead in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, were deliberately “targeted and assassinated” by a US Marine Corps veteran who appeared to go out of his way to spare civilians during his assault, authorities said.
Former Sergeant Gavin Eugene Long of Kansas City, Missouri, an Iraq war veteran with ties to an African-American anti-government group, seemed determined to slay as many police officers as possible before a SWAT team marksman cut short his attack on Sunday, according to police officials’ account the next day.
The single gunshot that killed Long, 29, was fired by an officer from about 100 yards away, the police said on Monday as they deepened their investigation into the second racially charged armed assault on US law enforcement in July.
The ambush came a week and a half after another former US serviceman espousing militant black nationalist views cut down five Dallas officers in a sniper attack that shattered an otherwise peaceful protest denouncing the fatal police shootings of two black men days earlier, one of them in Baton Rouge.
The police have declined to say what role race might have played in Sunday’s rampage, which killed two white officers and one black officer.
Three more officers were wounded, one of them critically. But Long, who was black, said in a series of social media messages posted in recent days, some from Dallas, that he was fed up with the mistreatment of African-Americans at the hands of law enforcement, and praised the attack on the Dallas police.
Legal papers filed in his home state of Missouri showed he was affiliated with Washitaw Nation, a black offshoot of the Sovereign Citizen movement, which challenges the legitimacy of the federal government.
As evidence of Long’s single-minded intent to level his violent rage exclusively at police, authorities on Monday cited video footage of the shooting that they said showed him hunting officers while bypassing civilians.
“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.”
Meanwhile, the police departments across the country are ordering officers to pair up after ambush attacks left eight officers dead in Texas and Louisiana. Officers say it’s an important safety precaution. But doubling up could also slow response times to low-level crimes.