Baton Rouge Police Shooting Latest: Gunman 'Targeted and Assassinated' Officers

BATON ROUGE, LA — Police described in chilling detail how 29-year-old Gavin Long intentionally targeted and assassinated officers, gunning down two police officers and tactically killing a deputy who ran to help an injured officer in the attack on Airline Highway.

The shooting jolted the nation that was still recovering from the killing of five police officers in Dallas that took place just 10 days prior to the bloodshed in Louisiana.

The gunman, identified as 29-year-old Gavin Long, made movements that were tactical and combative, ignoring civilians and going after law enforcement, authorities said at a press conference Monday. Long came to Baton Rouge from outside the state to harm the community and to harm law enforcement. Authorities believe Long had been in Baton Rouge for several days.

Louisiana State Police Superintendent Col. Mike Edmonson said authorities are confident Long was the sole shooter.

Long, of Kansas City, Missouri, served in the military and was deployed to Iraq for less than a year between 2008 and 2009, according to military records. He worked in the military for five years as a data network specialist. The shooting reportedly took place on Long's 29th birthday. CBS News reported Long's date of birth as July 17, 1987.

An official told NBC News the gunman did not make the 911 call to "lure" the police officers to the area of Old Airline Highway. The person who called 911 is not believed to be an accomplice or an attacker. Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards called the shootings, "a horrific attack on law enforcement."

Authorities are also looking into the social media use of Long. While officials did not confirm that a Twitter account @ConvosWithCosmos was Long's, the account has been recognized as belonging to the gunman, who posted Twitter messages praising the shooter in Dallas.

"The Shooter was NOT WHITE, He was one of us!," a Tweet dated July 8 with a picture of the Dallas gunman reads.

Documents obtained by the Washington Post and the Kansas City Star show Long wanted to change his name to Cosmo Ausar Setepenra and recognized himself as citizen of, "Washitaw," a black anti-government "sovereign citizen" group.

Authorities have recovered three weapons from the scene of the shooting and a Chevy Malibu rental from Missouri.

The three officers killed in the shooting were identified as 32-year-old Montrell Jackson and 41-year-old Matthew Gerald, both from the Baton Rouge Police Department, and 45-year-old Brad Garafola, of the East Baton Rouge Sheriff's Office. A fourth officer with the sheriff's department, Nicholas Tuller, 41, remains in critical condition. Tuller was shot in the head and the stomach and currently has a machine that is helping him breathe.

"It's been touch and go," said East Baton Rouge Sheriff Sid J. Gatreaux.

The heightened turmoil between the community and police had no doubt struck an emotional cord in the slain officers. Jackson wrote of the tensions in a Facebook post the day after the ambush in Dallas, expressing that he was tired both physically and emotionally. "The city MUST and WILL get better," he wrote in a post dated July 8.

At the press conference Monday, Edwards read the Facebook post penned by Jackson in its entirety.

Jackson had a family and recently welcomed a son, the Baton Rouge Advocate reported. He was described as a great police officer and once saved a toddler from a burning apartment building. Baton Rouge Police Chief Carl Dabadie recalled a time he visited officers just a few days prior to the shooting and it was Jackson who ended up raising the chief's spirits with a pep talk.

Gerald, who had just celebrated his 4-year wedding anniversary with his wife, was a former Marine and a Blackhawk crew chief who served three tours overseas. He was a father to two children.

“He’s a good family man, good cop, loving husband,” Skye Turner, a friend of Gerald's wife, told WWL. “He was a son, father, all those things you want in a spouse.”

Garafola came from a law enforcement background. He was married and leaves behind four children between the ages of 7 and 21. He was known as a "jack-of-all trades."

The shooting comes in the wake of heightened tension between police and the community in Baton Rouge since the fatal shooting of Alton Sterling that has prompted days of protests along the same highway where the officers were shot. Sterling's family has called for peace and an end to the violence. In an emotional press conference, his aunt called for an end to the bloodshed. Watch the full clip below:

The mother of Sterling's child called the killings a "despicable act of violence."

President Obama called for calm following the shooting, urging the nation to come forward and cautioning against the use of overheated political rhetoric. He has offered the full support of the federal government to local officials. In a statement, Attorney General Loretta Lynch said the justice department will provide investigative assistance to the fullest extent possible.

Image Credit: Gillian R. Triche via Twitter