Six police officers were shot and three are feared dead after a shooting in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on Sunday, reports CNN.
A “suspicious person walking down Airline Highway with an assault rifle” prompted a call to police, according to CNN. Possibly multiple shooters opened fire when police arrived, at around 9 a.m. The situation was apparently contained by noon.
One shooter is dead, and two others may be at large. The surviving officers are apparently hospitalized in critical condition.
Baton Rouge Police Department spokesman Sgt. Don Coppola later said that three officers were injured and three are dead. The shooting victims are from both the Baton Rouge Police Department and the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Office.
“There is still an active scene. They are investigating,” Holden told CNN. “Right now we are trying to get our arms around everything.” No motive has yet been reported.
“This is an unspeakable and unjustified attack on all of us at a time when we need unity and healing,” said Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards.
Cell phone footage shot by Twitter user shows part of the shooting. While the footage is blurry, shots can be heard, as well as what seems to be police speaking over a megaphone.
The police situation in the area has been charged in recent weeks, after Baton Rouge police officers fatally shot Alton Sterling outside of a convenience store earlier this month. Cell phone footage captured the incident, igniting controversy and launching a civil rights investigation by the Justice Department.
Five police officers were recently killed by a sniper in Dallas, and protests over the deaths of Sterling, Philando Castile and other African-Americans killed by police have raged across the country.
