3 Baton Rouge Police Killed in Shooting; Suspect Identified

CBN
07-17-2016

Share This article

Three officers are confirmed dead and at least three others wounded after a shooting in Baton Rouge Sunday morning.  Law enforcement officials have identified the suspect, who was shot and killed at the scene. 

Police said Gavin Long was the shooter and authorities initially believed that two other assailants might be at large, but hours later said that no other active shooters were in the city.

According to radio traffic, Baton Rouge police answered a report of a man with an assault rifle and were met by gunfire

Radio exchanges made public by the website Broadcastify reveal officers did not know where shot were being fired from for several minutes. 

President Barack Obama says he condemns, in the strongest sense of the word, the attack on law enforcement, further stating there is no justification for violence against law enforcement.

The shooting happened just before 9 a.m.at a gas station, less than 1 mile from police headquarters. It comes amid spiraling tensions across the city, and the country, between the black community and police.

Obama says the attacks on police officers, the second in two weeks, are "attacks on public servants, on the rule of law, and on civilized society, and they have to stop. "

"We may not yet know the motives for this attack, but I want to be clear: there is no justification for violence against law enforcement. None," the president said. "These attacks are the work of cowards who speak for no one. They right no wrongs. They advance no causes." 

Shortly after Obama's statement Attorney General Loretta Lynch released a statement in response to the shooting. 

She said there is no place in the United States for such appalling violence and pledges the full support of the Justice Department as the investigation unfolds.

Louisiana Gov. John Bell Edwards rushed immediately to the hospital where the shot officers were taken. He told media Sunday afternoon that the gunman committed, "an absolutely unspeakable, heinous attack" and that the hatred must stop. 

Officers and deputies from the Baton Rouge Police Department and East Baton Rouge Sheriff's Office were involved, but the races of officers and the suspect or suspects is unknown. 

Baton Rouge Mayor Kip Holden said he had spoken to officials from the White House, who offered to assist in any way possible.

Obama says he has offered the full support of the federal government to Louisiana state and local officials.

“This is an unspeakable and unjustified attack on all of us at a time when we need unity and healing,”  Edwards said earlier in a statement. “Rest assured, every resource available to the state of Louisiana will be used to ensure the perpetrators are swiftly brought to justice.”

"This tragic shooting affects black and white, rich and poor, civilians and public servants alike," said Louisiana GOP Chairman Roger F. Villere, Jr., in a statement.

"This cowardly crime is an attack on the values of law and order that members of the Baton Rouge community so desperately tried to maintain in the 12 days since the eyes of the world focused on our state."

"We send this message to those who would threaten to divide us: We are Louisiana and we will stand united and prayerful against evil," he added. "We are reminded in , "Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God." 

Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump responded to the news. 

Evangelist Franklin Graham called on people to pray for the city of Baton, Rouge. 

Dallas Police Chief Brown knows all too well the pain that comes when losing a fellow officer. Last week, five Dallas officers were killed in a sniper attack during a protest, which happened just blocks from where President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. 

 

Police-community relations in Baton Rouge have been especially tense since the killing of 37-year-old Alton Sterling, a black man killed by white officers earlier this month after a scuffle at a convenience store. The killing was captured on cellphone video and circulated widely on the internet.
    
It was followed a day later by the shooting death of another black man in Minnesota, whose girlfriend livestreamed the aftermath of his death on Facebook. Then on Thursday, a black gunman in Dallas opened fire on police at a protest about the police shootings, killing five officers and heightening tensions even further.

CBN News spoke with Alveda King about the Christian response to racial violence after the Dallas shootings. Click here to see that interview.   

Over the weekend, thousands of people took to the streets in Baton Rouge to condemn Sterling's death, including hundreds of demonstrators who congregated outside the police station. Authorities arrested about 200 people over the three-day weekend.
    
Michelle Rogers, 56, said the pastor at her church had led prayers Sunday for Sterling's family and police officers, asking members of the congregation to stand up if they knew an officer.
    
Rogers said an officer in the congregation hastily left the church near the end of the service, and a pastor announced that "something had happened."
    
"But he didn't say what. Then we started getting texts about officers down," she said.
    
Rogers and her husband drove near the scene, but were blocked at an intersection closed down by police.
    
"I can't explain what brought us here," she said. "We just said a prayer in the car for the families."

This attack follows a string of attack on law enforcement in the last two weeks. In Georgia, Tennesse, and Missouri Georgia, Missouri and Tennessee gun-wielding citizens have also shot police. 

Share This article