Beverly Blakes, the aunt of fallen Baton Rouge policeman Montrell Jackson, hugs Kedrick Pitts, the half-brother of slain Baton Rouge Policeman, Cpl. Jackson, after visiting Montrell’s mother’s house in Baton Rouge, La., Sunday, July 17, 2016. Jackson was one of the law enforcement officers who were shot and killed on Sunday morning. (AP Photo/Max Becherer)
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) —
7:25 a.m.
The coroner for Baton Rouge says his office will perform autopsies Monday on the three officers slain in an attack this weekend.
East Baton Rouge Parish Coroner Beau Clark says they autopsies will begin around 8 a.m., and he expects to release his preliminary findings, including the cause of their deaths, sometime this afternoon. Clark says an autopsy on the deceased suspect is planned for Tuesday.
In the Sunday attack, a former Marine dressed in black and carrying extra ammunition shot and killed three Baton Rouge law enforcement officers, less than two weeks after a black man was fatally shot by police there in a confrontation that sparked nightly protests that reverberated nationwide.
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7:20 a.m.
Businesses around a shooting that killed three law enforcement officers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, are reopening as police continue investigating the scene.
Customers were buying coffee and breakfast sandwiches Monday at a B-Quik convenience store near where officers first engaged the gunman less than 24 hours earlier. Next door, workers prepared for the day at a car wash where the gunman was cornered.
Businesses on two sides of the scene of a gunbattle were riddled with at least eight apparent gunshots. Investigators examined a hole in a window at a fitness supply business as news crews worked nearby, and wood covered another window that was shot out.
Authorities say two city police officers and a sheriff’s deputy died in the shooting Sunday morning, and the gunman was killed by law enforcement. Three other officers were wounded. The identities of the slain officers and two of those wounded are known. But the name of the third wounded officer hasn’t been released. Baton Rouge police Sgt. Don Coppola said in a text message Monday that officials plan to release that name, “just not sure exactly when.”
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7 a.m.
U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch says she condemns the attack in Baton Rouge “in the strongest terms possible” and says federal law enforcement agencies are helping on the ground.
Lynch said Monday in Washington that “families are again mourning loved ones robbed from them by senseless violence. … And all of us are again heartbroken at the news of yet another tragedy.”
She invoked a Facebook post by slain officer Montrell Jackson. Days ago, he wrote that he received “nasty, hateful looks” while in uniform but also said, “Please don’t let hate infect your heart.”
In the Sunday attack, a former Marine dressed in black and carrying extra ammunition shot and killed three Baton Rouge law enforcement officers, less than two weeks after a black man was fatally shot by police there in a confrontation that sparked nightly protests that reverberated nationwide.
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6:30 a.m.
State police say the gunman in the Baton Rouge shooting ambushed the six law enforcement officers and “certainly was seeking out police.”
Col. Mike Edmonson made the comments Monday morning. The shooting on Sunday killed three officers and left three others wounded, one critically. Police say the gunman was a former Marine who was killed at the scene.
Edmonson says: “His movements, his direction, his attention was on police officers.”
Edmonson also says investigators have interviewed people who had contact with the gunman in Baton Rouge, but he wouldn’t say how many or give other details. He stressed that officials are still asking any others who might have had contact with shooter Gavin Long to come forward.
The shooting less than a mile from police headquarters added to the tensions across the country between the black community and police.
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6:05 a.m.
Louisiana State Police have positively identified the shooter who killed three law enforcement officers in Baton Rouge as Gavin Long.
In a Monday morning Facebook post, Louisiana State Police said they needed to withhold official confirmation of his name until they had positively ID’ed him through fingerprints.
Long, who’s from Kansas City, Missouri, turned 29 on Sunday, the same day he opened fire, killing three and wounding three other officers. Police said Long was killed at the scene.
The shooting less than a mile from police headquarters added to the tensions across the country between the black community and police.
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2:10 a.m.
A former Marine dressed in black and carrying extra ammunition shot and killed threeBaton Rouge law enforcement officers, less than two weeks after a black man was fatally shot by police there in a confrontation that sparked nightly protests that reverberated nationwide.
Three other officers were wounded Sunday, one critically. Police said the gunman was killed at the scene.
The shooting less than a mile from police headquarters added to the tensions across the country between the black community and police. Just days earlier, one of the slain officers had posted an emotional Facebook message about the challenges of police work in the current environment.
President Barack Obama urged Americans to tamp down inflammatory words and actions.
The gunman was identified as Gavin Long of Kansas City, who turned 29 on Sunday.
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