The deaths of the three Baton Rouge officers came amid a spate of law enforcement officers killed, including five at a protest in Dallas, two at a courthouse in MI and a Kansas City, Kan., police captain shot and killed Tuesday while responding to a reported drive-by shooting.
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Col. Mike Edmonson of the Louisiana State Police confirmed the timeline of events.
Shortly before the ambush that killed three law enforcement officers in Louisiana, the gunman was stalking a Baton Rouge police auto with his rifle poised to shoot, police said.
During the Monday news conference, which lasted for almost an hour, officials offered a remarkably detailed and chilling narrative of the shooting, much of it drawn from video recordings Col. Edmonson said captured “the sheer brutality of the shooting”. He was also described as “a great police officer”. Two other officers were injured.
President Barack Obama says the nation will get through the recent killings of police officers with the “love and empathy of public servants” like the ones who were targeted in recent days. Visitation for Matthew Gerald, 41, an Iraq war veteran who became a Baton Rouge police officer less than a year ago, will be held Thursday and Friday.
Garafola and Gerald were white. On July 7, another former USA serviceman espousing militant black nationalist views killed five Dallas officers.
The other two officers suffered non-life-threatening injuries.
Baton Rouge had been beset with protests after the fatal police shooting of Alton Sterling, followed the next day by the death of Philando Castile near Minneapolis.
Missouri driving records indicate Long was pulled over by police in Goodwell, Oklahoma on March 23, 2016.
Yarima Karama, of Columbus, Ohio, said he received an email containing Long’s manifesto.. Two of the officials killed were white, and a third, Montrell Jackson, 32, was black.
Edwards said one of the wounded officers was fighting for his life while a second underwent surgery and needed further surgery on his neck. Col. Robert Williams, Chief of the Maine State Police, said Monday that troopers are being more careful because they’re more anxious.
In his post, Jackson talks about the difficulty of being both a black man and a police officer in the city of Baton Rouge.
Investigators believe that Long acted alone.
Long’s relationship with the Washitaw group is under probe, a US counter-terrorism official said.
Back at the fitness center, Deputy Nicholas Tullier, 41, had just got back in his patrol auto to run the tag of the Malibu when Long emerged in the parking lot, Gautreaux said. Spokesman Josh Earnest has said such a step was unlikely while noting the president’s steady outreach to and support for police and other law enforcement over the past couple of weeks. Washitaw is a black nationalist movement that was once targeted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
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State Representative C. Denise Marcelle said it was a total coincidence.
