Three other officers were wounded, one of whom is in critical condition.
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The Sunday morning shootings come in the wake of the death of Alton Sterling, a black man who was shot and killed after an altercation with Baton Rouge police officers on July 5. The next day, a black gunman in Dallas opened fire on police at a protest about the police shootings, killing five officers and heightening tensions even further.
Officers in Baton Rouge were responding to a call of a man carrying a gun when shots were fired at around 9 a.m. local time (10.00 a.m. ET). When officers arrived, they saw the person with the gun.
I condemn, in the strongest sense of the word, the attack on law enforcement in Baton Rouge.
Police officers have been shot in Baton Rouge, La., and authorities have begun a search for whoever fired on them, according to news reports.
Slate Belt Regional Police Chief David Mettin was watching the aftermath of the Baton Rouge shooting on television and said he hasn’t felt so disheartened in 29 years of service.
Sunday’s address marks the second time this month Obama has spoken out against the killings of law enforcement officials.
Don Coppola did not know the extent of the injuries or give the precise number of officers injured. “I feel strongly that leadership needs to stand up and defend these police officers”, Steve Loomis, president of the Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s Association, told Reuters in an interview. Obama spoke at the memorial service for the officers killed and told Americans not to despair, that the nation is not as divided as it might seem.
It was the fourth high-profile deadly encounter in the United States involving police over the past two weeks. Police said they were using a specialized robot to check for explosives near the body.
“Today has been a very tough day here in Baton Rouge and in Louisiana and in our country – an absolutely unspeakable, heinous attack on law enforcement here in Baton Rouge”, Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards said.
“The officers in Baton Rouge, the officers in Dallas, they were our fellow Americans, part of our community, part of our country, with people who loved and needed them, and who need us now – all of us – to be at our best”, Obama said.
Meanwhile, the Louisiana State Police Department is leading the investigation into the Sunday morning shooting.
Thousands of people have protested Sterling’s death, and Baton Rouge police arrested more than 200 demonstrators.
Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, took to Twitter to say: “We are TRYING to fight ISIS, and now our own people are killing our police”.
Rogers and her husband drove near the scene, but were blocked at an intersection closed down by police.
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“The violence, the hatred, it has to stop”, he said. “That’s how we bring this country together”.
