Baton Rouge cop killer Gavin Long was decorated Iraq veteran, who called himself ‘freedom strategist and spiritual adviser’

The gunman who shot three police officers dead in Baton Rouge on Sunday was a marine veteran who served in Iraq, in a chilling parallel with the Dallas cop killings, whose perpetrator served in Afghanistan.

Gavin Eugene Long, a 29-year-old African American widely identified as the shooter by US media, turned his gun on police in what has been described as an ambush, amid a spate of race-tinged violence involving law enforcement. Louisiana State Police Superintendent Colonel Mike Edmonson told reporters the gunman was killed, and there are no suspects at large.

At a Kansas City, Missouri address where Long was believed to have lived, a man confronted two local journalists by opening the door holding an AK-47 assault rifle, Fox4 reporter Megan Brilley said.

Long served in the US Marines for five years starting in August 2005 as a data network specialist, and attained the rank of sergeant, according to his military personnel file. His Iraq tour lasted from June 2008 to January 2009.