US Police Officers Killed in Baton Rouge Shooting
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – At least three police officers and a suspect were shot and killed in Baton Rouge, the second largest city in the US state of Louisiana.
The officers in Baton Rouge were responding to a call of a man with a gun when shots were fired. Two Baton Rouge police officers and one sheriff's deputy were killed.
One gunman is dead and police believe he was the only one involved in the attack, Mike Edmonson, superintendent of the Louisiana State Police, said in a press conference.
"We do not have an active shooter scenario in Baton Rouge," Edmonson said.
Multiple US news outlets identified the suspected gunman in Sunday's fatal shootings of law enforcement officers in Baton Rouge as Gavin Long, with some saying Long was a Black male from Kansas City, Missouri, Al Jazeera reported.
It was not immediately clear whether there was a link between the shootings and the recent unrest over the police killings of black men in Baton Rouge and Minnesota.
Police did not give any information about a possible motive.
US President Barack Obama condemned the "cowardly" 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," Obama said.
"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 has repeatedly called for racial unity.
"We as a nation have to be loud and clear that nothing justifies violence against law enforcement," Obama told reporters at the White House.
"This has happened far too often."
In an interview with national broadcaster NBC, Baton Rouge Mayor Kip Holden confirmed that three officers had been killed in the shooting near the city's police headquarters on Sunday.
Three other officers were reportedly injured and hospitalized.
The Black Lives Matter movement - which campaigns against police killings of African Americans - disavowed the killing of the officers and said in a statement it stands for "dignity, justice and respect".
The Guardian has documented at least 587 people killed by police across the US so far this year. From that total, 145 - nearly 25 percent - were Black, although Black Americans only constitute around 13 percent of the country's total population.
