Baton Rouge Gunman ‘Was Targeting Officers,’ Police Say

Source: NY Times

BATON ROUGE, La. — The man who fatally shot three law enforcement officers here and wounded three others before being killed by the police on Sunday morning “was targeting officers,” state police officials said Monday.

“Our preliminary investigation shows that he definitely ambushed those officers,” Lt. J.B. Slaton, a public affairs commander for the Louisiana State Police, said in a phone interview Monday morning. “We are still trying to find out what his motive was, and that’s going to be part of our investigation. But we believe he was targeting those officers.”

The superintendent of the Louisiana State Police, Col. Michael D. Edmonson, said Monday that investigators were interviewing people and sifting through visual evidence to track the activities of the gunman, Gavin Long, before he shot the officers, and to find out what brought Mr. Long to the city and why he stayed, adding that it was “critical and important” to get it right.

“There was no doubt in my mind” that Mr. Long had intended to kill the officers, Colonel Edmonson said on CNN. Lieutenant Slaton said Mr. Long had been positively identified with the use of fingerprint records.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/19/us/baton-rouge-shooting.html?_r=0