Nearly six minutes pass after the first shots are reported before police say they have determined the shooter’s location.
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One suspect dead in Baton Rouge, others may be at large, sheriff’s official says.
President Barack Obama urged Americans to tamp down inflammatory words and actions.
Obama has sought to balance concerns about police abuses, largely against African-Americans, while paying tribute to fallen officers. He said police do not believe there are “any other shooter [s] held up.in the Baton Rouge area”.
The Black Lives Matter civil rights movement has called for police to end racial profiling, bringing the issue to national attention ahead of the November 8 US presidential election. Republicans have pushed back, calling for support of the police.
In his brief remarks, Obama stressed the importance of staying away from divisive rhetoric and actions, particularly ahead of two weeks of the Republican and Democratic conventions where he predicted that political rhetoric would be “more overheated than usual”.
“We are not ready to say he acted alone”, Major Doug Cain said.
Three officers are confirmed dead in the attack outside a store in Baton Rouge about a mile from police headquarters early Sunday morning.
Obama says the motives for the attack are unknown, but there is no justification for violence against law enforcement.
He said the police arrived shortly after the gunfire began. Multiple police units were stationed at Baton Rouge’s Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center, where the stricken officers were believed to be undergoing treatment at a trauma center.
The officers were taken to a local hospital, Sergeant Don Coppola told the local CBS affiliate, adding he did not know the extent of their injuries.
Then, a black gunman in Dallas opened fire on police at a protest about the police shootings, killing five officers and heightening tensions even further. The shooter has been identified as an American citizen Gavin Long and it was his 29th birthday on Sunday.
The shooting came amid a spate of race-tinged violence involving law enforcement.
It was followed a day later by the shooting death of Philando Castile, another black man, in Minnesota, whose girlfriend livestreamed the aftermath of his death on Facebook.
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“Our nation is better than this, and the law enforcement family is certainly stronger”, Disbrow said in a statement.
