Three US police officers shot dead, three injured in Baton Rouge

One suspect killed and two on the run after attack on policemen responding to a shooting incident.

Policemen block a road after fellow officers were shot in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on July 17, 2016. Joe Penney / Reuters

Washington // Three police officers were killed and three injured in a shooting in Baton Rouge, Louisiana on Sunday, with at least two suspects at large.

“Three law enforcement are confirmed dead, three others injured,” the East Baton Rouge sheriff’s office said. “One suspect is dead, law enforcement believes two others may be at large.”

The officers were shot when they responded to a report of shooting along a motorway at about 9am.

Police are looking for the two surviving suspects.

“We’re not sure of anything right now,” Baton Rouge police spokesman L’Jean McNeely said. He urged local residents to be on the alert for the suspects.

“If they’re wearing all black, army fatigues, anything that’s suspicious in nature,” citizens should notify police, he said.

The injured policemen were reported to be in critical condition.

The shooting is the latest in a series of high-profile killings that have shocked the country over the last several weeks, exposing deep fault lines in society and reviving long-running debates about racial prejudice and an epidemic of gun violence.

“This is an unspeakable and unjustified attack on all of us at a time when we need unity and healing,” Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards said in a statement. “Rest assured, every resource available to the state of Louisiana will be used to ensure the perpetrators are swiftly brought to justice.”

Earlier this month a gunman killed five police officers in Dallas during a demonstration triggered by the fatal police shooting of two African-American men whose dying moments were captured in video footage that went viral online.

One of those killed was Alton Sterling, shot dead by a police officer in Baton Rouge two days before the Dallas attack.

Last week, police arrested more than 100 protesters taking part in a demonstration against police brutality in Baton Rouge under the banner of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Last month, Democratic legislators, pushing for tougher gun-control laws after a massacre in a Florida gay nightclub killed 49 people, staged a 24-hour sit-in in Congress after Republicans refused to allow a vote on two widely supported measures.

* Agence France-Presse