A US gunman has fatally shot three police officers and wounded four more in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the same city where a black man was killed by white officers earlier this month, PressTV reported.
The shots were fired around 9 am Sunday morning, kicking off a manhunt for the shooter.
“The scene seems to be contained right now, but it is still active,” said Sgt. Don Coppola, Baton Rouge Police Department. “We’re asking everyone to stay out of the area.”
On July 5, 2016, Alton Sterling, 37, was shot several times after being tackled to the ground by two white officers, one of two consecutive police killings that led to mass protests against racial bias in law enforcement.
One day after Sterling’s death in Baton Rouge, Philando Castile, 32 was fatally shot by police in Falcon Heights, Minnesota, after being pulled over.
On Friday, five policemen were killed and seven others wounded by a black gunman in Dallas, Texas, during a protest against police brutality and racial profiling of African Americans.
The killings have renewed racial tensions that have flared repeatedly across the US since the 2014 police killing of unarmed black teen Michael Brown in Missouri.
Police in the United States killed over 1,150 people in 2015, with the largest police departments disproportionately killing at least 321 African Americans, according to data compiled by an activist group that runs the Mapping Police Violence project.