The black radical that ambushed and murdered three law enforcement officers in cold blood in Louisiana purportedly thought his actions were “evil” — but necessary.
That’s what he wrote in a manifesto that an Ohio man says was emailed to him by the killer less than an hour before the shootings.
Photographs of the three-page letter show it was signed by “Cosmo,” the first name of an alias used by Baton Rouge gunman Gavin Long, and the pictures were attached to an email sent from a Google address Long used.
In the letter, Long said he expected people who knew him wouldn’t believe he would commit “such horrendous acts of violence.” He wrote that he viewed his actions as necessary to “create substantial change within America’s police force.”
The Associated Press first reported on the photographs of the letter Wednesday and said they were from Yarima Karama, a Columbus, Ohio, musician who said he didn’t know Long personally but received several emails from him after Long began commenting on Karama’s YouTube videos in March.
So far, no one has been able to conclusively verify Long sent the photos himself from his Google account. Metadata the AP reviewed from the three photos indicates they were snapped shortly before 8 a.m. on the day of the shooting using a Motorola Android cellphone. The photographs appear to have been taken from inside a car because a gearshift and a cup holder are visible. Both photos and time stamps can be modified, however.
Police have said officers first saw the shooter at a convenience store at 8:40 a.m. Sunday. Within two minutes, there were reports of shots fired. Police gunned down Long after he fatally shot three officers and wounded three others.
The violence capped two weeks of turmoil for Baton Rouge that began with the killing of a black man, Alton Sterling, during a scuffle with two white police officers at a convenience store. That shooting, captured on cellphone video, provoked widespread protests about police treatment of the black community.
Karama said he provided a copy of the letter to FBI agents who interviewed him at his home Wednesday.
Todd Lindgren, a spokesman for the FBI office in Cincinnati, said he could not respond to any questions about the case “due to the Baton Rouge matter being an ongoing investigation,” and the FBI’s New Orleans office also declined comment.
Louisiana State Police Col. Mike Edmonson said law enforcement officers found an array of handwritten documents in Long’s car and a hotel where he was staying, but he did not know if the material included the letter Karama shared.
“It was all rants and raves,” Edmonson said.
In the self-described manifesto, which was started off with the words “Peace Family,” Long wrote about a “concealed war” between “good cops” and “bad cops,” and said he felt obligated to “bring the same destruction that bad cops continue to inflict upon my people.”
Long, a black military veteran whose last known address was in Kansas City, Missouri, spent five years in the Marine Corps. He served one tour in Iraq before being honorably discharged.
Before the Baton Rouge shootings, Long posted rambling internet videos calling for violent action in response to what he considered oppression.
He did not specifically mention Baton Rouge or detail his plans for an attack in the letter.
“I know I will be vilified by the media & police,” it read. “I see my actions as a necessary evil that I do not wish to partake in, nor do I enjoy partaking in, but must partake in, in order to create substantial change within America’s police force, and judicial system.”
Karama read the letter in a video posted on YouTube. He has declined to provide copies of the other emails he said he received from Long or with additional technical information about Sunday’s email that possibly could help verify Long wrote the letter.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
If six good trained men with guns can’t bring down a single crazy guy with a gun, it makes a mockery of the NRA argument that “The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun”.
Our police have the hardest job in the world … whenever they stop a car or walk round a corner, they never know whether they will be confronted by some out-of-control, gun-toting moron brandishing a firearm. No wonder mistakes are made.
Just sayin’
The problem is most policemen are not “good trained”. They go to the range maybe once a year in order to qualify, and qualifications have been steadily lowered. My son took some classes in which policemen were participants, and he and a friend of his both out shot all of the law enforcement participants in ALL exercises. Plus, it could be because of the political atmosphere, they were only trying to wound him, not kill him. Again, putting their lives on the line for the PC crap we now have.
Unions prevent municipalities/govt entities from forcing training on P.O.’s. They can’t be forced to exercise or qualify yearly.
I don’t understand your comment about the NRA. The NRA is correct. the cops are the good guys and they stopped a bad guy with a gun. they probably saved lives by downing the bad guy. unfortunately this man was demented. he thought he could change the country by creating an evil task. like my mother always said, “you don’t correct one mistake by creating another.”
His name should spell out his thoughts. He is a globalizer and wants all the world to be the same.. What the globalist believers don’t understand isbthat it may seem all will be equal, but quite the contrary… Besides who really is going enjoy a zombie lifestyle living in one culture and one language. Boring boring…
I TAKE IT YOU WERE THERE. IF NOT YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT TOOK PLACE. YOUR JUST ANOTHER STUPID IDIOT RUNNING YOUR DUMB MOUTH.
The police are getting a little to confident about areas they are patrolling , i am sure there will be a lot more alertness on the police end of the game….. there are peaceful ways of dong things and there other ways of doing things. The police are getting backed into a corner now and there will probably be a lot more shootings. Some people dislike the police but they are necessary… more problems from the present administration, the country is more divided now than it was fifty years ago….. Thank you Obama and the Clintons….
Amen and amen
The gun laws in Canada are a much better choice at protecting and minimising the risk to our Police officers and the public!!!
What gun laws in Canada ? You mean the absolute restriction of handguns.
Karama is another useful idiot brain washed by the divider in chief (“If I had a son he might have looked like Trayvon Martin” and “Get Revenge”) Louis Farrahkan, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Reverend wright, etc. And perhaps he is one of the “protesters” paid by george soros, the destroyer of nations, to continue BHO’s agenda of Divide and Conquer.
You hit the nail on the.head. Lorraine. Well said, these trouble makers should be in prison. Just my opinion..
Well a lots of trouble makers should be in jail.anyone that has not sin let them throw the first stone.
These are the 5 worst men in this country. While everyone is trying to. Promote love and peace and help and love our fellow man, women and child. These preach hate and violence. I live in a black and white naborhood, and I love my black friends a they love me we take care of each other… I am elderly. and we have live next door and across the St from each outher for nearly 40 years. Never a cross word. I love them and their children, with all my heart., and. They feel the same about me and mine. We live in a small town in Tennessee, Gods country. Just saying.
This soldier of change was nothing but a cold-blooded killer. He took the lives of men that were seeking to protect the citizens. He took the lives of men that he had no proof of having mistreated anyone.
His cruel act forfeits his right to claim any moral high ground or just cause for his actions.
Absolutely!
Well said. I couldn’t agree with you more.
Agreed.
Amen and amen.
There have been a few instances where cops have had a quick trigger finger-too quick. But the attacks in Dallas and Baton Rouge will not have the desired effect. Rather they will force all cops to be faster on the draw and the trigger. Many more killings will result. The cops need to change their training to realize the new reality. I remember seeing videos of soldiers/Marines training for an urban combat environment. They practice shooting at enemy and not at civilian targets. Hopefully cops are receiving similar training. But everthing ads to the already strained budgets.
A young man had his whole life ahead of him, threw it away for fame and vengeance,
what he left for us was broken hearts and anger, “he accomplished nothing good”.
I see that the diagnoses on this asshole he had PTSD. Hey, I could probably be diagnosed the same from military and working in the ghetto of Chicago for 15 years.
I am not ut killing cops or anyone else at this moment! This guy was a scewie Louie farrakan follower.
Obama’s chickens are coming home to roost.