BATON ROUGE, Louisiana-Just days before he was shot and killed Sunday morning, a Baton Rouge police officer posted an emotional Facebook message saying he was “physically and emotionally” exhausted and expressing how hard it was to be both a police officer and a black man, a friend said Sunday.
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Three law enforcement officers were killed, three were injured, and a suspect is dead following what police are calling an ambush attack on law enforcement by a Missouri man outside a Baton Rouge gas station.
One of Jackson’s Facebook posts, written a day after five Dallas officers were shot to death on July 7, quickly began spreading across the web. An official told NBC News the gunman did not make the 911 call to “lure” the police officers to the area of Old Airline Highway.
“It’s just pure, unadulterated evil”, Edwards said.
Louisiana State Police Superintendent Colonel Mike Edmonson said the gunman’s “movements, his direction, his attention was on police officers”, and he was definitely “seeking out” police.
Long, who was black, served in the Marines from 2005 to 2010, reaching the rank of sergeant. During his five-year stint in the service, which included a June 2008 to January 2009 deployment in Iraq, he received several medals, according to media reports citing military records.
“We may not yet know the motives for this attack, but I want to be clear: There is no justification for violence against law enforcement”. It was the second time in 10 days that a heavily armed man set out to avenge the killing of young black men at the hands of police. “He was not going to stop here”, Dabadie said. “Yeah. And I’d like you to do a letter of recommendation.’ So I wrote it and a few weeks or so later, he got hired”, said Cavalier. “Revenue and blood, revenue and blood, revenue and blood”. In a July 10 video on YouTube, Long is heard saying that should “anything happen” to him, he was “not affiliated” with any group.
The officers killed were 45-year-old Brad Garafola of the East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s office, and two members of the Baton Rouge Police Department: 32-year-old Montrell Jackson and 41-year-old Matthew Gerald.
“With him it was God, family and the police force”, Pitts said outside his mother’s house in Baton Rouge, where family was gathered Sunday.
It is understandable that many people, blacks especially, are frustrated and angry that young black men have been killed by police.
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The episode was over in about eight minutes, according to Edmonson’s account.
