July 17, 2016

At Least 3 Police Officers Shot and Killed in Baton Rouge

Just 10 days after five officers died in the Dallas police ambush.

Authorities talk to a driver near the area where several police officers were shot while on duty on Sunday in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.Mike Kunzelman/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Update, July 17, 5:42 p.m. ET: The deceased suspect has been identified as 29-year-old Gavin Eugene Long of Kansas City, and he attacked the police on his birthday, CBS News reports.

Update, July 17, 4:49 p.m. ET: Baton Rouge law enforcement officials announced at a press conference Sunday afternoon that there is no longer an “active shooter” situation, and that the deceased suspect was likely the only shooter, according to NBC News. Police initially suspected that there were at least two other shooters at large.

Update, July 17, 3:49 p.m. ET: Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards condemned the shootings. “This is an unspeakable and unjustifiable attack on all of us at a time when we need unity and healing,” he said.

Update, July 17, 12:39 p.m. ET: The city’s mayor and the East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s office have confirmed that three police officers are dead and three others were wounded in the attack. The sheriff’s office reports that at least one suspect is dead, but two others may still be at large.

At least three police officers were shot and killed and at least four other officers were injured during a gun attack in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on Sunday morning, according to CNN. The incident occurred just 10 days after an ambush of Dallas police killed five officers and injured nine people.

While no official link has been established, Sunday’s attack comes amid ongoing protests in the city and around the country after the death of Alton Sterling, a black man who was shot and killed by police outside a convenience store in Baton Rouge. Thousands attended Sterling’s funeral on Friday.

Baton Rouge Mayor Kip Holden told MSNBC soon after the attack that the police officers had been responding to reports of gunfire when they were ambushed by at least one gunman. A Louisiana State Police spokesman told the network that the gunman was shot during the incident. The gunman’s condition remains unclear.

We will update this post as new details become available.

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate