On July 5, Alton Sterling, a black man, was shot to death on camera by white police officers.
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Long – who was killed at the scene – is now thought to have been the only shooter in the incident.
“This is an unspeakable and unjustified attack on all of us at a time when we need unity and healing”, wrote in Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards said in a statement posted to Twitter.
The gunman’s “movements, his direction, his attention was on police officers”, state police Col. Mike Edmonson said.
“This is truly a sad day in Baton Rouge”, Mayor Kip Holden said Sunday.
The gunman, identified as Missouri resident Gavin Long, opened fire on police officials outside a convenience store, when they responded to reports of a masked individual with an assault rifle being spotted at the location.
Sgt. Don Coppola Jr. of the Baton Rouge Police Department identified the other slain Baton Rouge police officer as 41-year-old Matthew Gerald, who had been with the department less than a year.
Although he was believed to be the only person who fired at officers, authorities were investigating whether he had some kind of help.
The scene, however, is contained, McKneely said.
The deadly standoff was the latest blow to a city plagued by tensions in the wake of Sterling’s death.
In the Facebook posting Jackson said while in uniform he gets nasty looks and out of uniform some consider him a threat. “Please don’t let hate infect your heart”, he appealed, stressing that “the city [Baton Rouge] must and will get better”.
“We can’t take anything for granted any more”, East Baton Rouge Sheriff Sid Gautreaux said last week. Montrell Jackson: The 32-year-old officer had been serving with the Baton Rouge Police Department for 10 years.
U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch says she condemns the attack in Baton Rouge “in the strongest terms possible” and says federal law enforcement agencies are helping on the ground.
“We as a nation have to be loud and clear that nothing justifies violence against law enforcement”.
On the July YouTube video attributed to Long, he said he was speaking from Dallas after going there to protest. The group said the administration needed to show political leadership by “supporting them and giving them the resources they need to protect themselves and their communities”. “Revenue and blood, revenue and blood, revenue and blood”. In an earlier video, the man says that if anything ever happens to him, he doesn’t want to be linked to any groups, and mentioned once belonging to Nation of Islam.
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The wave of violence also has 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 election.
