Shooter kills Three policemen in Baton Rouge.

Three Baton Rouge law enforcement officers were killed on Sunday and three others wounded in an attack by a lone gunman with an assault style rifle, once again thrusting Louisiana’s capital city into the national spotlight.

The shootings were the latest chapter in two convulsive weeks in which the nation was transfixed by video accounts of the fatal shooting of Alton Sterling by Baton Rouge police on July 5 and a separate shooting of a black motorist in Minnesota.

Two days later, five Dallas police officers were gunned down in an attack eerily similar to Sunday’s shooting on Airline Highway. The gun battle — in which the attacker was killed — unfolded not far from police headquarters, the scene of often tense protests over the killing of Sterling.

The suspect, identified by law enforcement sources as Gavin Eugene Long, of Kansas City, Missouri, is believed to have been the only shooter involved, State Police officials said. Two others who were later detained in West Baton Rouge Parish and questioned were released late Sunday.

It was unclear why Long was in Baton Rouge, how long he had been here and whether he came to confront police. He had travelled to Dallas shortly after the five police officers were shot there on July 7. The shootings in Baton Rouge took place as officers responded to a report of a man armed with an assault-style rifle near a convenience store at Airline Highway near the Hammond Aire Plaza.
As President Barack Obama, Gov. John Bel Edwards and others weighed in on an incident that filled the national airwaves, some details began to emerge Sunday afternoon about the victims and the shooter.

The law enforcement officer victims were identified as Baton Rouge police officers Montrell Jackson, 32, and Matthew Gerald, 41, and East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Deputy Brad Garafola, 45.

Garafola’s widow, Tonja Garafola, said he was working extra duty at the convenience store. She said his shift had ended at 8 a.m., the last shift he had to work before heading out Monday on vacation.

Sheriff Sid Gautreaux said Brad Garafola was killed when he saw the two Baton Rouge police officers under fire. “He lost his life going to the aid of a Baton Rouge police officer.

He saw the officer down and ran in the direction of the shots to try and render aid.” “I’ve been knowing him since before he became a sheriff’s deputy. (He was) just a good guy, a good family man,” Gautreaux said of Brad Garafola. Gautreaux said Sunday that a 41-year-old deputy was “fighting for his life,” while another 51-year-old deputy underwent surgery with nonlife-threatening wounds.

Gautreaux said all the deputies involved are married with families.

At a news conference Sunday afternoon, Edwards and East Baton Rouge Mayor- President Kip Holden stood with grim faces to update the public on the stunning killings less than two weeks after a sniper killed five officers and injured others in Dallas.

State Police Supt. Col. Mike Edmonson gave a nearly minute-by-minute account of how events unfolded, with Baton Rouge Police officers receiving a call at 8:40 a.m. about a man carrying a rifle walking in the area of Airline Highway and Goodwood Boulevard.
Soon afterward, Baton Rouge officers responding to the call for help at B-Quik on Airline Highway just north of Old Hammond Highway saw a person dressed in all black standing behind a beauty supply store holding a rifle, Edmonson said.

At 8:42 a.m., a call came in to officers that
shots were fired, he said. Two minutes later, another call surfaced that officers were down at the scene, he said. At 8:45 a.m., law enforcement received another report of shots fired, he said.
By 8:46 a.m., officials received a report that the suspect was standing near a car wash next to the convenience store, Edmonson said.

Two minutes later, emergency medical responders arrived to attend to the wounded, he said. “Officers engaged the subject at that particular time, and he ultimately died at the scene,” Edmonson said.

While the initial call and gun battle played out over a period of about 30 minutes, confusion and fear paralyzed the city all day as officers tried to determine whether the killer had accomplices, and their probe kept Airline Highway shut down for hours.

Culled from : The Advocate