[Breaking news update, 5:08p.m]
President Barack Obama on Sunday condemned the slayings of three Louisiana law enforcement officers, as he called on the nation to condemn violence against law enforcement.”We as a nation have to be loud and clear that nothing justifies violence against law enforcement,” Obama said, speaking from the White House press briefing room. “Attacks on police are an attack on all of us and the rule of law that makes society possible.” In a written statement earlier in the day, Obama called the incident a “cowardly and reprehensible assault.”
[Breaking news update, 4:49 p.m]
The Baton Rouge police shooter has been identified as 29-year-old Gavin Long, two law enforcement sources tell CNN. The shooter apparently died in a shootout with police on his birthday. He was born, the sources said, on July, 17,1987.
[Breaking news update, 4:11 p.m]
There is not an “active shooter scenario” in Baton Rouge, said Col. Michael D. Edmonson, superintendent of the Louisiana State Police. He was speaking at a press conference about the shooting that left three law enforcement officers dead on Sunday.
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In a city already tense after a high-profile police shooting of an African-American man, three Baton Rouge police officers were killed and three others wounded Sunday. Officials think the attack on the officers is the work of multiple gunmen.
Police received a call of a “suspicious person walking down Airline Highway with an assault rifle,” a source with knowledge of the investigation told CNN. When police arrived, the shooting began.
One of the suspects is dead. Authorities believe two others may be at large. The dead suspect in the Baton Rouge shooting was wearing all black and was wearing a mask, Baton Rouge Police Department Sgt. Don Coppola said. Coppola said he did not know what the mask looked like, but that it was “some type of mask to conceal (the shooter’s) identity.”
“If they are wearing army fatigues; if they are wearing all black; if they are wearing a mask; if they are wearing anything that’s out there, please, give us a call,” said Baton Rouge Police Cpl. L.J. McKneely.
Investigators are reviewing a video of the Baton Rouge firefight posted to social media to see who might have been involved, a law enforcement source with knowledge of the investigation told CNN’s Pamela Brown. The video has since been taken down.
The firefight took place in a part of town that the source described as rough. The area is a known drug trafficking area. It is a location where police often go to grab coffee.
President Obama quickly issued a statement condemning the attack on law enforcement.
“For the second time in two weeks, police officers who put their lives on the line for ours every day were doing their job when they were killed in a cowardly and reprehensible assault,” Obama said. “These are attacks on public servants, on the rule of law, and on civilized society, and they have to stop. …These attacks are the work of cowards who speak for no one. They right no wrongs. They advance no causes.”
The law enforcement official described the situation in Baton Rouge as a powder keg.
The shooting took place around 9 a.m. (10 a.m. ET) in the city of about 230,000 people.
“There was no talking, just shooting,” McKneely said.
By noon, authorities had secured the scene and were making sure there weren’t any explosives left behind.
“After that, we’re going to gather as much information as we can and work this case as best as we can to find all individuals that were involved in this,” McKneely said.
“Somebody might have seen something suspicious, may know of guys plotting to do this. That’s why we’re reaching out to the community.”
Since the shooting death of Alton Sterling by Baton Rouge police earlier this month, the department has worried about credible threats against officers.
It has been an emotionally charged few days across the country because of the protests stemming from the Sterling shooting and the shooting by police of Philando Castile in Minnesota, plus the ambush on Dallas police officers on July 7 in which a sniper killed five officers.
“This is an unspeakable and unjustified attack on all of us at a time when we need unity and healing,” Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said.
Kip Holden, the mayor-president of East Baton Rouge Parish, said “everything is moving fast.”
“There is still an active scene. They are investigating,” he said. “Right now we are trying to get our arms around everything.”