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East County News Service
Slideshow photo courtesy @CNN on Twitter
July 17, 2016 (Baton Rouge, La.) - Three police officers and one shooter are dead and three officers are wounded in a shooting in the latest incident of police violence, this time in the capital of Louisiana, Baton Rouge, this morning, CNN reports.
The shooting began around 9 a.m. Central time when police received word about a "suspicious person walking down Airline Highway with an assault rifle" and reported to the scene.
One of the suspects, who was reported to be wearing all black and wearing some type of mask, is dead. The search is on for the other two shooters believed to have been involved. A video that has since been removed from social media may be providing police with clue as to who the suspect is. Police are also looking for anyone wearing army fatigues or all black or possibly a mask.
"For the second time in two weeks, police officers who put their lives on the line for ours every day were doing their job when they were killed in a cowardly and reprehensible assault," President Barack Obama said in a statement. "These are attacks on public servants, on the rule of law, and on civilized society, and they have to stop. ...These attacks are the work of cowards who speak for no one. They right no wrongs. They advance no causes."
Baton Rouge was already on edge after the shooting death of Alton Sterling by police earlier this week.
The U.S. has suffered an unusual amount of police shootings stemming from the deaths of African American males. The shooting death of Philandro Castle in Minnesota led to an ambush of police officers in Dallas on July 7.
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"Black lawmakers recalling police stops."
South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, the lone black republican in the Senate, candidly described being stopped by police, even Capital Hill cops, because of the color of his skin. It's an experience all too familiar to many of his African-American colleagues in Congress, according to an Associated Press story by Mary Clare Jalonick in the Antelope Valley Press this past Saturday. A day after Scott's personal recounting on the Senate floor, several lawmakers said Thursday that they have had similar experiences, whether it's being pulled over for no reason while driving in their hometowns or being challenged by police. Their white colleagues, they think, would never be treated the same way.
Scott described being pulled over seven times within a year and also being stopped by a U.S. Capital Police officer who said he recognized the pin he was wearing that identifies him as a senator - but didn't recognize Scott. "I have felt the anger, the frustration, the sadness and the humiliation that come with feeling like you're being targeted for nothing more than just being yourself," Scott said.
Americans have questioned the state of race relations after gun violence directed at police officers as well as shootings by police. Last week, a black Army veteran killed five police officers in Dallas in revenge for police shooting black men in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and the Minneapolis suburbs. As the nation reels, black lawmakers say they hope Scott's speech resonates, leading to a greater understanding about the divide between blue and black.
"I am absolutely convinced that most African-American members of Congress, particularly the men, have encountered some form of a hostile police encounter over the years," said Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. Jeffries, 45, recalled twice being pulled over by police and searched along with African-American friends. No reason was given for the stops. Several other black male lawmakers told similar stories. South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn, the No. 3 Democrat in the House and a veteran of 1960s civil rights marches, said he was once being driven in South Carolina in his car with congressional tags. A policeman stopped the car and asked the driver, "Where's the congressman?" while staring directly at Clyburn sitting in the back seat. "He doesn't see a congressman, he sees a black face," Clyburn said. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., the only other African-American in the Senate, wrote an essay for the Stanford University newspaper after he graduated from that school in the early 1990s about being stopped by police, guns pointed at him, for "fitting the description" of a car thief. "In the jewelry store, they lock the case when I walk in,' Booker wrote. "In the shoe store, they help the white man who walks in after me."