Killed by Long were East Baton Rouge Parish sheriff’s Deputy Brad Garafola, 45; and two officers from the Baton Rouge Police Department: Montrell Jackson, 32; and Matthew Gerald, 41. “He left that place of safety”.
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Garafola, along with two other officers, was killed on duty last Sunday in a shootout with Gavin Long, a 29-year-old former US marine from Kansas City, who was also killed in the exchange.
A self-professed black separatist shot six officers last Sunday, wounding three as he targeted the men with “chilling, sheer brutality”, law enforcement authorities said afterwards.
Garafola’s visitation was beginning at noon at a Baptist church that seats 1,500, with the funeral starting at 2 p.m. Additional mourners, many of them law enforcement officers from around the country, stood along the church walls.
Garafola’s family, friends and colleagues remembered him as a courageous man who was killed as he tried to help another.
Edwards said he didn’t know if Garafola was familiar with that verse, but it “defined his life and his death”.
Garafola’s boss, East Baton Rouge Sheriff Sid Gautreaux, described to reporters how he could see Garafola on surveillance video, firing at the gunman as bullets hit the concrete around him.
His brother-in-law, Jaye Cooper, said people called Garafola the neighborhood husband because he cut grass, caught snakes and did other chores around the neighborhood.
“Brad never looked for anything in return for what he did for anyone else, he did it because he was raised by two wonderful parents, Ms. Emily and Mr. Johnny, who raised him the right way, always help those who are in need no matter what”. It included scores of officers from around Louisiana and from coast to coast.
Michael Fendrick, a sheriff’s deputy from Dakota County, Minnesota, was among those officers who traveled to the service as part of an honor guard team.
The gunman, Gavin Long, was shot and killed by police.
Mourners view the body of East Baton Rouge Sheriff deputy Brad Garafola at the Istrouma Baptist Church Saturday.
Just days before his death, the 32-year-old Jackson – married with a 4-month-old son named Mason – wrote a Facebook post detailing how hard it was for him to be both a black man and a police officer, describing himself as “tired physically and emotionally”. He said he attended all five funerals for the officers killed by a sniper in Dallas this month, and planned to attend all three of the funerals in Louisiana.
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