US police departments on ‘high alert’ as three more officers gunned down in civil unrest escalation

The masked gunman who ambushed and killed three officers and wounded three more left an online trail documenting his interest in black separatism and anger at police shootings of black men.

Ex-Marine sergeant Gavin Eugene Long called for black people to start “fighting back, through bloodshed” just days before launching the attack.

Police departments across the United States were on high alert on Monday (July 18) amid growing concern that officers were being targeted as part of a concerted pattern of civil unrest.

Long was shot dead by police after opening fire on officers less than a mile from the city`s police headquarters in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

He carried out the killings on his 29th birthday — in the same city where an unarmed black man was killed by police nearly a fortnight ago, triggering nightly protests and the retribution massacre of five officers in Dallas.

It emerged that Long travelled to Dallas in the aftermath of the shooting spree by Micah Johnson, another former US military veteran, and recorded a YouTube video urging more violent protests.

He used the alias Cosmo Setepenra online and had registered the domain name ConvosWithCosmo.club in April using his Kansas City address. The website shows a generic page with ads but a similarly named site, ConvosWithCosmo.com, includes links to podcasts, YouTube videos, books of his for sale and various social media accounts.

Throughout his postings, Long described violence as the solution to what he saw as oppression of black Americans. He railed against the July 5 police shooting of 37-year-old Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge.

“One hundred percent of revolutions, of victims fighting their oppressors, from victims fighting their bullies, 100 per cent have been successful through fighting back through bloodshed,” he said in a video. “Zero have been successful through simply protesting. It has never been successful and it never will.”

In a tweet, he called violence an “answer.”

Wearing body armour and dressed all in black with a mask hiding his face, Long opened fire on the three officers outside a Baton Rouge convenience store at just before 9am on Sunday (July 17).

The victims were later named as Montell Jackson, 32, a ten-year veteran of the local police department who had a baby with his wife in March; Matthew Gerald, 41, who had been a police officer for less than a year; and father-of-four Brad Garafola, 45.

Police-community relations in Baton Rouge have been especially tense since the death of Mr Sterling, shot after a scuffle at a convenience store. It was captured on a mobile phone video and circulated widely.

It was the fourth high-profile deadly encounter in the US involving police over the past two weeks.

The violence has left 12 people dead, including eight police officers, and sparked a national conversation over race and policing.

US President Barack Obama said the killings were attacks “on the rule of law and on civilised society, and they have to stop”.

He said there was no justification for violence against law enforcement and that the attacks are the work of cowards who speak for no one.

The president admitted that America is “not even close” to where it needs to be in terms of resolving issues between police and the communities they serve, after concluding a three-hour meeting with community activists, politicians and law enforcement officials.

Mr Obama expressed optimism, however, and said the participants — who included members of the Black Lives Matter movement — agreed such conversations need to continue despite emotions running raw.

In the last week he has devoted his attention to the gun violence directed at police officers as well as shootings by police.

Last Tuesday (July 12), Obama attended a memorial service for the five slain Dallas officers and called the families of Mr Alton Sterling in Louisiana and Philando Castile in Minnesota to offer condolences. He said he wanted Americans to have an open heart so that they can learn to look at the world through each other`s