Alwaght- Three United States police officers are dead during a shooting incident which targeted at least seven officers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Police received a call of "suspicious person walking down Airline Highway with an assault rifle," the source said. When police arrived, the man opened fire.
The remaining officers are hospitalized in critical condition, the source said.
Kip Holden, the mayor-president of East Baton Rouge Parish, said authorities were still trying to get a handle on the situation, but added, "The count is three officers dead possibly."
The victims may include police officers and sheriff's deputies.
"There is still an active scene. They are investigating," he said. "Right now we are trying to get our arms around everything."
The shooter is believed to be down as well, Holden said.
"Everything is moving fast and I have not been able to verify everything," he said.
The apparent revenge attack comes after White police officers shot and killed an African American named Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge earlier this month.
Police in the region had expressed worry about possible revenge attacks against police officers.
The incident comes after for the five US policemen killed last week in a downtown Dallas ambush by a gunman targeting police with a military-style rifle in a revenge attack following the killing of African Americans by rogue White police officers.
The mass shooting threatened to reignite racial divisions in the US. The ambush was carried out by an African American who once served in the US occupation army in Afghanistan. Police say targeted white officers and had espoused anger at police shootings of black men. The killings were carried out at the end of a peaceful protest march over the recent shooting-deaths of black men by police in Louisiana and Minnesota.
