A black former US Marine today killed three police officers and wounded three others in Baton Rouge, Louisiana on his birthday, in an incident similar to the one ten days ago in Dallas, Texas, where another black former soldier killed five policemen.

The perpetrator of this new police shooting was identified as Gavin Eugene Long, a former marine who turned 29 today. He was shot dead in an exchange of gunfire with the police, which also injured three other agents.

Authorities had initially reported that three people had participated in the attack but they later acknowledged that Long acted alone in the shooting, although two others, suspected to have been linked to the event, have been arrested.

The ex-marine from Kansas City, Missouri, was identified by local media as a black person, although authorities have yet to confirm this information.

The shootout erupted after a 911 call at about 8:40 am reporting a suspicious man with an assault rifle walking down Airline Highway, which runs outside of the Baton Rouge police headquarters.

Upon arrival at the scene, the perpetrator started firing upon policemen indiscriminately, according to witnesses.

The three policemen wounded, two of them belonging to the Baton Rouge Police Department, 41 and 32 years old, and the third to the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Office, 45, were taken to nearby hospitals in serious conditions.

One of them, according to police, is in critical condition.

Police said the man was dressed in black with his face covered, and, according to some media, he was also wearing a bullet-proof vest.

Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards, called the attack “unjustified”. It took place two days after the burial of Alton Sterling, a 37-year-old African American who was shot to death by two police officers after being pinned to the ground during his arrest in Baton Rouge.

Although authorities have not speculated on the motives for the attack, which came more than a week after the shooting in Dallas during a protest over police shootings of Sterling and another black man, 32, in Minnesota.

In the Dallas case, the sniper, Micah Xavier Johnson, a 25-year-old former Army reservist, managed to kill five policemen and wounded seven others, two of them civilians.

Before dying from police planted bomb with C-4 explosives, Johnson said he wanted to “kill white people” due to recent violent incidents involving law enforcement.

In a scene repeated several times in recent days, US president Barack Obama appeared before the press to urge all Americans to focus on being united and “temper our words” regardless of political ideology.

“It is so important that everyone: regardless of race or political party or profession, regardless of what organizations you’re a part of, everyone right now focus on words and actions that can unite this country rather than divide it further,” the president said in reference to both major US party conventions, to be held later this month.

The conventions tend to be “more overheated than usual,” said Obama without referring directly to the inflammatory rhetoric of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

Before Obama’s appearance, the New York magnate who has declared himself “the law and order candidate” denounced the lack of leadership in a response to the Baton Rouge shooting and asked “How many law enforcement and people have to die because of a lack of leadership in our country?”

In a tone more in line with Obama’s, Democrat party presidential candidate Hillary Clinton called on Americans to “stand together to reject violence”.

The country recently experienced various moments of racial tension, especially after the death of an unarmed black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, at the hands of a white police officer who was later dismissed of all charges. EFE

Washington, Jul 17 (EFE)