Instead of the callous rhetoric flowing from Washington and the mainstream media, East Baton Rouge Sheriff Gautreaux wants everyone to know that killings in Baton Rouge, LA reflect a heart issue not a gun issue.
Sheriff Gautreaux is confident that, with God’s help, his community will overcome the events that left three law enforcement officers dead and three more wounded. However, he does not think that politicizing the tragic killings in Baton Rouge serves any purpose but to deepen wounds.
“Until we come together as a nation, as a people, to heal as a people. If we don’t do that and this madness continues, we will surely perish as a people.”
Since Alton Sterling was killed by officers two weeks ago, Baton Rouge has been a powder keg of tensions while investigations continue and Black Lives Matter activists rally to protest. An unspecified number of at-large suspects are still be sought by Baton Rouge law enforcement.
State Police Major Doug Cain said that individuals from the nearby town of Addis had been questioned and released, but that the investigation was still ongoing. He said no charges had been filed against at this time. Cain also said that authorities are looking to see if the killer had any help “indirectly, directly here or at home”.
Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards called the shooting as “an unspeakable and unjustified attack on all of us at a time when we need unity and healing.”
While Sheriff Gautreaux focused on people’s hearts, President Obama couldn’t pass up a chance to push for more gun control and issue a veiled warning to Republicans. Just after the shootings Obama said, “I condemn, in the strongest sense of the word, the attack on law enforcement in Baton Rouge … These are attacks on public servants, on the rule of law, and on civilized society, and they have to stop.”
Just hours later, speaking of the incident in Baton Rouge, Obama turned his focus to gun control and a warning to Republicans that they should not jump to conclusions as to the motivations of the cop killer in that city. He even went so far as to question if the shooting was even planned, though strong evidence was already available to the affirmative.
