Three police officers were shot and killed and three others wounded Sunday morning in the southern U.S. city of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, after a masked gunman dressed in black opened fire with an assault rifle.
Hours later, authorities said the gunman was killed, and that a fourth officer, a deputy sheriff, was in critical condition at a local hospital after undergoing emergency surgery. Two other officers were undergoing hospital treatment for non-life threatening wounds.
President Barack Obama, speaking on national television, condemned the killings, saying such attacks "are "happening far too often." He called on Americans to "avoid divisive rhetoric" in the aftermath of the latest violence, which he earlier had described as "cowardly attacks on public servants, on the rule of law, and on civil society."
Obama also noted that Sunday's shootings, and other recent deadly violence involving police in Dallas, Texas, Baton Rouge and in Minnesota, come ahead of both Republican and Democratic nominating conventions set to begin in the coming days. He said that convention rhetoric "tends to get hotter than usual," and urged candidates and their supporters to avoid "careless accusations" that could further heighten tensions.