In Baton Rouge, the police force has been viewed as overly aggressive and unrepresentative of a city where over half the 230,000 residents are black. Minorities are “very wary of police and often afraid of them,” says Michele Fournet, a veteran Baton Rouge criminal defense lawyer.

Sunday morning (July 17) erupted into mayhem, when a gunman fired at several police officers in Baton Rouge, killing three officers and injuring three others before police killed him at the scene, authorities said. It is unclear whether there is a link between Sunday’s shootings and the recent unrest over the police killings of black men in Baton Rouge and Minnesota.

“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.

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.”

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

The killings, which occurred as officers investigated a report of a man with an assault rifle, came less than two weeks after Alton Sterling was fatally shot by police in Baton Rouge, prompting protests. It came 10 days after the killing of five police officers in Dallas during a protest prompted in part by Sterling's death.

Baton Rouge Police Chief Carl Dabadie said two of the officers killed Sunday were from his department. The other officer killed was East Baton Rouge Sheriff's deputy Brad Garafola, 45.

By Premji