No suspects at large after three police officers shot dead in Baton Rouge

The gunman who shot dead three police officers and wounded three others in the Louisiana capital of Baton Rouge today was killed and there are no suspects at large, officials said.

Superintendent Colonel Mike Edmonson told reporters that the person behind the attacks was shot and killed at the scene.

"What we do not believe is we have any other shooter held up in the Baton Rouge area" he said.

The gunman behind the attack has been identified as 29-year-old American citizen Gavin Long.

The shooting took place along a highway around 9am local time, the statement added.

It appears the shooting began before police officers were at the scene.

"It's my understanding that they (the officers) had responded to an initial shooting incident," Casey Rayborn Hicks, public affairs officer for the sheriff's office, told local WAFB television.

• The injured police were reported to be in critical condition.

WAFB aired video footage of police responding to the scene. Multiple shots could be heard as civilian cars quickly backed away.

In the initial aftermath of the shooting Baton Rouge police spokesperson L'Jean McNeely urged local residents to be on the alert for suspects saying that every enforcement agency in the area was to be drafted in.

"This is an unspeakable and unjustified attack on all of us at a time when we need unity and healing," Governor John Bel Edwards said in a statement...
 [rte.ie]
17/7/16