Baton Rouge, Louisiana: The shooting that left at least three police officers dead in Baton Rouge, Louisiana on Sunday may have been carried out by multiple gunmen, police authorities in the city have said. The officers were responding to a call of shots fired when they were ambushed by at least one gunman, at around 9 a.m. local time. One suspect is dead and police are checking the shooting scene with a robot to make sure there are no explosives.
Police told reporters authorities are seeking more than one suspect and said the public should be on the lookout for people dressed in black and carrying long guns. It was not immediately clear whether there is a link between Sunday’s shootings and the recent unrest over police killings of black men in Baton Rouge and Minnesota.
Police-community relations in the city have been especially tense since the killing of 37-year-old Alton Sterling, who was 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. 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.
