BATON ROUGE, La. — One of the three officers killed on Sunday has been identified as Montrell Jackson — a 10-year-veteran who recently shared a powerful Facebook post about the physical and emotional hurdles of being an officer after Alton Sterling’s death.
Jackson, 32, leaves behind a wife and a 4-month-old baby boy.
On July 8, Jackson wrote on Facebook about the recent “trying times.”
The Facebook post was shared with Jackson’s Facebook friends, but several friends shared screenshots of the Facebook post on Sunday.
You can read Jackson’s full Facebook post below:
“I’m tired physically and emotionally. Disappointed in some family, friends, and officers for some reckless comments but hey what’s in your heart is in your heart. I still love you all because hate takes too much energy but I definitely won’t be looking at you the same. Thank you to everyone that has reached out to me or my wife it was needed and much appreciated. I swear to God I love this city but I wonder if this city loves me. In uniform I get nasty hateful looks and out of uniform some consider me a threat. I’ve experienced so much in my short life and these last 3 days have tested me to the core. When people you know begin to question your integrity you realize they don’t really know you at all. Look at my actions they speak LOUD and CLEAR. Finally I personally want to send prayers out to everyone directly affected by this tragedy. These are trying times. Please don’t let hate infect your heart. This city MUST and WILL get better. I’m working in these streets so any protestors, officers, friends, family, or whoever, if you see me and need a hug or want to say a prayer. I got you.”
On Sunday, a man identified as Gavin Long of Kansas City went on a shooting rampage on his 29th birthday that left two police officers and a sheriff’s deputy dead, police sources said. Long was a former Marine who spent time in Iraq and was discharged at the rank of sergeant in 2010, according to the U.S. military.
State Rep. Ted James identified Jackson as one of the victims. Jackson was the father of a 4-month-old baby boy.
Jackson’s death comes just two weeks after Alton Sterling was fatally shot by an officer in Baton Rouge. A GoFundMe page has been set up by family members to support Jackson’s wife and son.
At an afternoon news conference, local and state authorities, including Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, said Long was thought to be the lone gunman. Earlier reports had said authorities believed there might have been more than one attacker.
There is not an “active shooter scenario” in Baton Rouge, said Col. Michael D. Edmonson, superintendent of the Louisiana State Police.
President Barack Obama on Sunday condemned the killings and all attacks on law enforcement.
“We as a nation have to be loud and clear that nothing justifies violence against law enforcement,” Obama said, speaking from the White House press briefing room. “Attacks on police are an attack on all of us and the rule of law that makes society possible.” In a written statement earlier in the day, Obama called the Baton Rough shootings a “cowardly and reprehensible assault.”
The shooting Sunday took place around 8:40 a.m. (9:40 a.m. ET) in the city of about 230,000 people, already tense after a high-profile police shooting of Alton Sterling, an African-American man, on July 5.
On Sunday, police received a call of a “suspicious person walking down Airline Highway with an assault rifle,” a source with knowledge of the investigation told CNN.
When police arrived, the shooting began.
“There was no talking, just shooting,” Baton Rouge Police Cpl. L.J. McKneely said.
By noon, authorities had secured the scene and were making sure there weren’t any explosives left behind.
Initially authorities believed two other shooters might be at large.
Long was wearing all black and was wearing a mask, Baton Rouge Police Department Sgt. Don Coppola said. Coppola said he did not know what the mask looked like, but that it was “some type of mask to conceal (the shooter’s) identity.”
Since the shooting death of Sterling by Baton Rouge police, the department has worried about threats against officers.
It has been an emotionally charged few days across the country because of the protests stemming from the Sterling shooting and the shooting by police of Philando Castile in Minnesota, plus the ambush on Dallas police officers in which a sniper killed five officers.
“This is an unspeakable and unjustified attack on all of us at a time when we need unity and healing,” Edwards said Sunday in the hours after the Baton Rouge shooting.
