Documents show that Long sought to change his name a year ago to Cosmo Setepenra. The man describes himself as a “Freedom Strategist, Mental Game Coach, Nutritionist, Author and Spiritual Advisor”. The man also discusses protests in Baton Rouge and what he perceived as oppression.
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In online posts, a man using an alias of Long’s said protests alone do not work, and that people must fight back after the deaths of black men at the hands of police. “That’s the only way a bully knows to quit”.
Among other things, Long says in the YouTube video: “If you all want to keep protesting, do that”.
His website links to a LinkedIn profile for Cosmo Setepenra, a name he recently adopted, noting that he graduated from Central Texas College in 2011 with an associate’s degree, and also studied at Clark Atlanta University from 2012 to 2013. On Sunday, some initial reports had suggested that officers were caught up in a shoot-out involving people firing at each other. Long was killed at the scene.
A Baton Rouge resident described the moments he said he saw a man dressed in all black, tactical gear engage in gunfire with police. One said they meant to use the weapons against cops.
“This is truly a sad day in Baton Rouge”, Mayor Kip Holden said Sunday.
Gavin Eugene Long hosting “Convos with Cosmo” prior to his attack on police in Baton Rouge. A third officer who had a graze wound to his neck was released from a hospital on Sunday.
He sought to change his name to Cosmo Setepenra in a document filed in May 2015 with the Jackson County Recorder of Deeds.
In the document, he also says he belongs to the Washitaw de Dugdahmoundyah, also known as the Washitaw Nation.
The groups says it’s a sovereign Native American nation within the boundaries of the U.S.
The name-change document ends: “Standing firm on the Ancient Principles of, LOVE, TRUTH, PEACE, FREEDOM AND JUSTICE”.
At about 8:42 a.m., there were reports of shots fired, Edmonson said. An autopsy on the suspect was scheduled for Tuesday.
The attack unfolded less than two weeks after Baton Rouge police fatally shot a black man, Alton Sterling, in a confrontation that reverberated nationwide. Customers bought coffee and breakfast sandwiches at a B-Quik convenience store. Next door, workers prepared for the day at a vehicle wash where the gunman was cornered. Investigators examined a hole in a window at a fitness supply business as news crews worked nearby, and wood covered another window that was shot out.
The slain officers were 32-year-old Montrell Jackson, a 10-year-veteran of the Baton Rouge Police Department; 41-year-old Matthew Gerald, who had been with the department for less than a year; and 45-year-old East Baton Rouge sheriff’s deputy Brad Garafola, a 24-year veteran of the department, according to Sheriff Sid Gautreaux III. The wounded were likewise split between the two jurisdictions.
“We don’t need inflammatory rhetoric”, Obama said. “And all of us are again heartbroken at the news of yet another tragedy”.
That message was a big part of the post Jackson put on Facebook, along with a photo of himself and his son. I get nasty, hateful looks and out of uniform some consider me a threat.
Long, dressed in black and armed with a rifle, was shot dead on Sunday morning in a gunfight with police. Two others remained hospitalized, one still in critical condition.
Alton Sterling: Killed by police, forgotten by the media? “When he engaged those police officers, it was deliberate and extremely accurate”. For many in Baton Rouge, the police have been viewed as overly aggressive and unrepresentative of a city where more than half the 230,000 residents are black.
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Louisiana State Police have positively identified the shooter who killed three law enforcement officers in Baton Rouge as Gavin Long. By then, a Baton Rouge SWAT team arrived and an officer shot Long from about 100 yards away, Edmonson said. Police were not on the scene yet, Vancel said, but sirens could be heard approaching the area.
