An Iraq war veteran who gunned down six policemen in Baton Rouge targeted the officers in a brutally calculated ambush, officials say.
Three officers were killed and three were wounded, one critically, when Gavin Eugene Long, a former US Marine Corps sergeant, opened fire on police responding to a report of a gunman dressed all in black walking down a street in Louisiana's capital on Sunday morning.
Updating reporters on their investigation a day after the deadly rampage, police described how video footage showed the 29-year-old suspect hunting down police officers and sheriff's deputies, while bypassing civilians he encountered.
The carnage came to an abrupt end less than 10 minutes after it began when Long, was shot dead by a police SWAT team marksman, firing from a position about 100 metres away.
Police say they believe that Long, armed with two rifles and a pistol, had intended to make his way to the headquarters of the Baton Rouge Police Department a short distance away to carry on with his assault.
"There is no doubt whatsoever that these officers were intentionally targeted and assassinated," Louisiana State Police Superintendent Colonel Mike Edmonson said during a news conference on Monday.
"It was a calculated act against those who work to protect this community every single day."
Added Baton Rouge Police Chief Cal Dabadie, "I have no doubt he was headed to our headquarters, and he was going to take more lives."
The ambush rocked a city still shaken from days of angry protests and tension over the fatal police shooting on July 5 of a 37-year-old black man, Alton Sterling, who was confronted by officers while selling CDs outside a Baton Rouge convenience store. Sterling was buried just last Friday.
A day after his slaying, another black man, Philando Castile, 32, was shot to death by a policeman during a traffic stop near St Paul, Minnesota.
The back-to-back killings reignited nationwide protests over the use of force by police against minorities, including a fateful rally in Dallas on July 7 that ended up shattered with the deadly ambush of five police officers by a gunman apparently out to avenge the deaths of Sterling and Castile.
Police declined on Monday to say whether the attack by Long, who was black, was racially motivated. Two of the lawmen killed on Sunday were white, and a third, Montrell Jackson, 32, was black.
But an imprint from the gunman left behind on social media included videos in which he decried mistreatment of African-Americans by law enforcement and praised the attack on Dallas police, perpetrated by another black US military veteran.
Edmonson said Long, a resident of Kansas City, Missouri, had been in the Baton Rouge area for several days before the shooting, and while he acted alone in the ambush itself, police have yet to rule out his having assistance in planning the attack.
Legal papers filed in his home state of Missouri showed that he identified himself as a member of a group called the Washitaw Nation, a black offshoot of the Sovereign Citizen movement, which challenges the legitimacy of the federal government.
Military records released by the Pentagon showed Long, listed as a data network specialist, served five years in the Marine Corps until his discharge in August 2010, including a six-month deployment to Iraq.
The two other dead officers in Baton Rouge were identified as Matthew Gerald, 41, also an Iraq war veteran; and Sheriff's Deputy Brad Garafola, 45, a father of four.
President Barack Obama offered his condolences for the fallen officers and their families in telephone calls on Monday to the victims' loved ones as well as top law enforcement officials in the city.
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