Baton Rouge (United States) (AFP) – The black former Marine and Iraq war veteran who shot dead three police officers in the southern US city of Baton Rouge at the weekend specifically targeted the cops, officials said Monday.
Louisiana investigators were now trying to determine why the shooter — identified by US media as Gavin Long, 29 — opened fire on the officers on Sunday. He also wounded three cops before he was killed in a firefight.
It was not yet clear if his act had a similar motivation as the slaying of five Dallas officers 10 days ago, when a black veteran of the Afghanistan war opened fire, seeking revenge for the fatal police shootings of black men.
But the weekend bloodshed in Baton Rouge kept the city — and the country — on edge. Racial tensions were already high in Louisiana’s state capital after the July 5 death of Alton Sterling, a black man shot at point-blank range by white police.
“He ambushed these police officers,” Louisiana State Police Superintendent Colonel Mike Edmonson told CNN. “His prey was those police officers or any police officers in the area.”
When asked whether he believed Long had drawn the cops to the scene, he replied: “No doubt in my mind.”
Another Louisiana state police spokesman, J.B. Slaton, told The New York Times: “We are still trying to find out what his motive was, and that’s going to be part of our investigation. But we believe he was targeting those officers.”
A recent series of shootings involving police have exposed deep fault lines through US society surrounding racial prejudice and gun violence.
The early July shooting of Sterling by Baton Rouge police and another by Minnesota police of a black motorist led to a nationwide wave of marches against police abuses.
The dying moments of both men were captured in video footage that went viral online.
At a July 7 protest over those two shootings in Dallas, a black gunman killed five police and wounded several others before he was slain.
That shooter, identified as Micah Xavier Johnson, told negotiators that he wanted to kill white cops, before he was killed by a police robot bomb.
He added: “The violence, the hatred, just has to stop,” Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards said.
– Troubled shooter –
The Baton Rouge shooting took place along a highway near the police headquarters on Sunday at around 8:40 am (1340 GMT), after officers responded to a call about a man carrying a rifle.
The suspect was dressed all in black and, some reports said, wore a mask.
A witness told local media the gunman carried what appeared to be an AR-15 assault-style rifle.
The shooter, based in Kansas City — more than 700 miles (1,100 kilometers) north of Baton Rouge — was a former Marine whose served a 2008-2009 tour of duty in Iraq.
In 2015, Long legally changed his name to Cosmo Ausar Setepenra, claiming to be a member of the Washitaw Nation, a group of African-Americans claiming to be a Native American nation in the United States.
Setepenra’s Twitter feed said he had traveled to Dallas after the July 7 shooting. It is also filled with posts targeting white people.
But one of the officers killed by Long — Montrell Jackson, 32 — was black. The other two were identified as Matthew Gerald and Brad Garafola.
“I swear to God I love this city but I wonder if this city loves me. In uniform I get nasty hateful looks and out of uniform some consider me a threat,” Jackson wrote recently on Facebook.
“Please don’t let hate infect your heart. This city MUST and WILL get better … if you see me and need a hug or want to say a prayer I got you.”
– ‘Cowardly’ –
President Barack Obama condemned the “cowardly” Baton Rouge shooting and demanded an end to such violence.
“It is so important that everyone… right now focus on words and actions that can unite this country rather than divide it further,” he told reporters at the White House.
“We don’t need inflammatory rhetoric. We don’t need careless accusations thrown around to score political points or to advance an agenda. We need to temper our words and open our hearts, all of us.”
Obama, the first black US president, has repeatedly called for racial unity.
“Nothing justifies violence against law enforcement,” he said.
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