BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) – Three Baton Rouge law enforcement officers investigating a report of a man with an assault rifle were killed Sunday, less than two weeks after a black man was shot and killed by police here in a confrontation that sparked nightly protests that reverberated nationwide.
Three other officers were wounded, one critically. Police said the suspect was killed at the scene. Authorities said the dead gunman was the only person who fired at the officers, but they were unsure whether he had some kind of help from others, according to a state police spokesman.
“We are not ready to say he acted alone,” Major Doug Cain said. Two people were detained in the nearby town of Addis. Cain called them “persons of interests.”
The shooting – which took place just before 9 a.m., less than a mile from police headquarters – came amid escalating tensions across the country between the black community and police. The races of the suspect and the officers were not immediately known.
It was the fourth high-profile deadly encounter in the United States involving police over the past two weeks. The violence has left 12 people dead, including eight police officers, and sparked a national debate over race and policing.