Baton Rouge: A divided city is again heartbroken

3 police officers fatally shot by ex-US Marine in ambush-style attack

Before the killing of three law enforcement officers on Sunday and the fatal shooting of a black man by police earlier this month, Baton Rouge was a city divided between the police and the policed.

Tensions in Louisiana's state capital go back years. For many residents, the police force has been viewed as overly aggressive and unrepresentative of a city where over half the 230,000 residents are black and where racial problems date back decades.

Minorities are "very wary of police and often afraid of them," says Michele Fournet, a veteran Baton Rouge criminal defense lawyer.

It was unclear whether there was a link between Sunday's shootings and the recent unrest over the police killings of black men in Baton Rouge and Minnesota. Police told CNN the shootings on Sunday did not appear to be race-related.

Officers were responding to a call of shots fired when they were shot in what Baton Rouge Mayor Kip Holden described as "an ambush-style deal". Three officers were killed and three others wounded. The gunman is dead.

"It is unspeakable that these men risking their lives to protect and serve this community were taken out the way that they were," Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards told a news briefing.

"The hatred just has to stop," he said.

Community policing

Baton Rouge has been one of America's most crime-plagued cities. In 2015, it had 60 homicides, 98 rapes and 809 robberies, among the highest rates of violent crime for a US city of its size.

In recent years, local activists have urged law enforcement to spend more time in neighborhoods as part of "community policing."

Many would also like the city to hire more black officers.

Last month, the city's police department held a second "summer camp day" with local children, which was seen by some residents as an effort to improve relations with the community.

Baton Rouge Police Chief Carl Dabadie Jr. "wanted the community to be able to interact with the police in a positive manner," said Simone Higginbotham, a 45-year-old resident who publishes a free, local magazine.

"He wanted to go back to the times when kids wanted to grow up and become police officers."

Calls for community policing have been growing across the country since the 2014 police shooting of black teenager Michael Brown by a white officer in Ferguson, Missouri.

A wave of anti-police protests has spread, fueled by a series of fatal encounters between police and members of minority groups.

Louisiana State Police officers leave the location where three police officers were shot dead in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on Sunday. The suspect, identified as Gavin Long, was killed after he ambushed the officers. Sean Gardner / Agence Francepresse

Baton Rouge Police Officer Montrell Jackson holds his son Mason at a Father's Day event in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Jackson was one of the officers killed on Sunday. Trenisha Jackson Via Ap

(China Daily 07/19/2016 page11)