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You are here: Home / Open Threads / President’s Remarks on Baton Rouge Police Shooting

President’s Remarks on Baton Rouge Police Shooting

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Joy Ann Reid of MSNBC/NBC, via her twitter, as well as CBS News, is reporting that the shooter has been identified as Gavin Eugene Long, 29 years old (today was his birthday), from Kansas City, MO. Reid is reporting that he may have ties to the sovereign citizens movement.

Update at 5:00 PM EDT

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Gavin Eugene Long is affiliated with an anti-government group. I’m withholding the name being reported as every hit I get on a key word search for it simply brings up Alcoholics Anonymous organizations.

President Obama is expected to address the Nation momentarily:

Reader Interactions

120Comments

  7. 7.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Davebo: I’ve read that article three times and I can’t find where it identifies him as a black male.

  10. 10.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    @gogol’s wife: it may be just a coincidence but everything seems to have gotten extra crazy corresponding to The Donald’s political rise.

  11. 11.

    Helen

    Chuck Todd is becoming a caricature of himself. Said “some might call” the president’s remarks “a lecture.”

  12. 12.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    @SiubhanDuinne:
    I’m reading Levenson’s Einstein book, the part about Weimar Germany at the moment.
    I think we really don’t have a conception of how evil things could get.

  13. 13.

    lamh36

    So it’s an anti-government group, not a white supremacy group? The shooter is a Black guy, so I have a hard time believing he was a member of a white supremacy group unless, all joking aside, we have a Dave Chappelle Clayton Bigbsy type situation..

  15. 15.

    Davebo

    This is an excellent example of early reporting issues on situations like this. Some claim two other shooters captured on other side of the river, others claiming police say it was a single gunman. It’s all over the place.

  16. 16.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Ultraviolet Thunder: I haven’t yet read Prof Levenson’s book, but on my last trip I finished Timothy Snyder’s Black Earth, which compels me to agree with you that we have no idea how bad bad can be.

  18. 18.

    gwangung

    @lamh36: I’ve seen some reports that there are indeed black sovereign citizens (brief quote from the SPLC:

    In the late 2000s and early 2010s, most new recruits to the sovereign citizens movement are people who have found themselves in a desperate situation, often due to the economy or foreclosures, and are searching for a quick fix. Others are intrigued by the notions of easy money and living a lawless life, free from unpleasant consequences. Many self-identified sovereigns today are black and apparently completely unaware of the racist origins of their ideology. When they experience some small success at using redemption techniques to battle minor traffic offenses or local licensing issues, they’re hooked. For many, it’s a political issue. They don’t like taxes, traffic laws, child support obligations or banking practices, but they are too impatient to try to change what they dislike through traditional, political means.

  20. 20.

    Keith G

    @gogol’s wife:

    It feels as if Trump has unleashed all the bad energy in the universe.

    Did Trump invent cell phone video?

    This cake has been in the oven for a long time. I am surprised that it has taken this long for the weariness and metastasized anger to engulf the handful of individuals who do not have better angels in their nature. Trump, for all his ills, is not the the creator of this bitter recipe.

  24. 24.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    @SiubhanDuinne:
    I wasn’t intentionally making that comparison. And it would be a reach to liken the present circumstances to a crushed postwar country a century ago. Just pointing out that things have gone from bad to extremely very bad before for disaffected people feeling robbed of their heritage.

  25. 25.

    lamh36

    USA Today covering all their bases in case reports are wrong.

    @USATODAY 26s26 seconds ago
    #BREAKING Multiple media organizations, citing unnamed sources, identify Baton Rouge shooter as Gavin Long

  26. 26.

    Schlemazel Khan

    @SiubhanDuinne:
    It is damned difficult to not goodwin a thread when the subject insists on behaving in a manner that strongly indicates a correlation to the populist, violent, ‘othering’, venomous words and actions of the thing itself.

  29. 29.

    gogol's wife

    @Keith G:

    Trump did not invent cell phone video. But his public statements are aggressive, abusive, and divisive in a way that has never been seen in any presidential candidate in my lifetime (Goldwater is a pussycat compared to this). His supporters follow suit. Their slogans are vile and abusive to the point of not being suitable for children. Two signs I saw just this weekend: “Tired of being humped? Vote Trump.” “Hump” is an obscenity where I come from. And: “Hillary for Prison 2016.” Don’t you have something positive to say about your candidate? You have to say my candidate belongs (a former Senator and Secretary of State) belongs in jail? A candidate for president for a major party has in fact unleashed a degree of violent rhetoric and negativity that has not been seen in decades, if ever.

  33. 33.

    Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again)

    @lamh36:

    The shooter is a Black guy, so I have a hard time believing he was a member of a white supremacy group unless, all joking aside, we have a Dave Chappelle Clayton Bigbsy type situation..

    Nah, more like Wesley Snipes (the actor, not the 30 Rock character) who was in the federal pen for years for pulling a “sovereign citizen” tax-dodging scheme.

  38. 38.

    La Caterina (Mrs. Johannes)

    @lamh36: I’ve had a black sovereign citizen as a client. I explained the racist roots of that philosophy and told him that I had much more effective ways to deal with his foreclosure–he agreed to drop the sovereign citizen stance when he saw it wasn’t helping him.

  39. 39.

    Schlemazel Khan

    If this guy is both black and a sov cit I do believe many sov cits will be in emergency rooms across the nation being treated for exploding head syndrome. It is taken as read among the tru b-leavers of sov cit that ‘mud people’ have no rights of any kind and should never be sovereign. My take on that comes from brushing up against them 20-30 years ago at practical shooting events. The competitions themselves are a lot of fun but the competitors are 99% batshit insane sov cits who see black helicopters everywhere & believe anything they cannot understand must be part of the secret plot to hand the US over to the new world order (i.e. Jewish communists & their black foot soldiers). Even gentle attempts to reason with them garnered strong reactions that bordered on violent. I seriously feared for my life given the presence of loaded firearms.

  41. 41.

    r€nato

    Hey man, he was just using his 2nd Amendment rights to fight tyranny. Surely every single ammosexual in the country will stand behind him on principle. Heck, they already have.

  43. 43.

    lamh36

    It shouldn’t still amaze me what lies and propaganda folks will share and believe just cause they read it on the internet

    Tim Wise
    Heads up…someone has created a FAKE Facebook page for Gavin Long, the apparent shooter of the police today in Baton Rouge. The only posts on it — including one in which he criticizes the killing of Alton Sterling and says that “cops hunt us on the daily” — were created today, after he was already dead, not on the days shown on the posts (there’s a time stamp that proves it right next to the claimed date of the post). Someone is clearly trying to suggest that he was motivated by anti-cop hatred and the movement for police accountability/Black Lives Matter. We have no idea what his motives were. But the page is fake. Interestingly, it says he worked for a site called Newsball Inc. which is a pro-Trump website. Makes me wonder if the person who faked this account might work there and forgot to scrub that little detail from their profile as they were creating this fake one, perhaps to smear the movement? Don’t know for sure, but it makes very little sense otherwise…

  48. 48.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @Schlemazel Khan: This profile piece from the Southern Poverty Law Center says that “many” of them these days are African American. And “apparently completely unaware of the racist origins of their ideology.”

    It’s worth a read, the belief system is far weirder than I knew.

    Edit: As noted in a comment above I now see. The link is worth a click though.

  50. 50.

    Kryptik

    @lamh36:

    Knowing things, it might work anyways because first impressions are forever for some people. Already running into folks assured he was connected to Black Lives Matter (as if it’s a monolithic organization) solely because he was black.

  51. 51.

    max

    @lamh36:

    Interestingly, it says he worked for a site called Newsball Inc. which is a pro-Trump website. Makes me wonder if the person who faked this account might work there and forgot to scrub that little detail from their profile as they were creating this fake one, perhaps to smear the movement? Don’t know for sure, but it makes very little sense otherwise…

    They did it for the lulz, most likely.

    max
    [‘One arrow points at BLM, the other at Trump – spreading confusion and chaos.’]

  52. 52.

    max

    Did Obama speak or not?

    max
    [‘They never upload those things on the Youtube pages afterwards.’]

  59. 59.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    It’ll be interesting to see what tidy package the MSM ties this shooter up in.
    Not a Scary ISIL Muslim. Not BLM. Not a white ‘lone wolf’. Too complicated for the news cycle to digest.

  60. 60.

    rikyrah

    this is the computer era. they should be telling us everything they know about him. they have to know already. was it is his car? when did he leave Missouri? what about the weapon he used? legally purchased? did he have a license to carry the weapon?

  62. 62.

    BR

    Seems to me that the media is amplifying individual events that in the aggregate actually don’t indicate a higher crime rate or any particular trend. Is this the case? I thought we’re still basically at historically low crime rates?

  66. 66.

    gwangung

    @Baud: Because it doesn’t have a pre-written narrative. They have to do some actual work to figure out the story.

  68. 68.

    Howard Beale IV

    A local Fox reporter goes to the last known address of the shooter in KC and tweets: Just went to the most recent listed address for the alleged #BatonRouge shooter in KC… A man answered the door with an AK-47

  69. 69.

    lamh36

    @Baud: usually to my mind, info is slow to come when it doesn’t fit the narrative. Happened in the DFW case as well..

  70. 70.

    Schlemazel Khan

    @Bill E Pilgrim:
    Bookmarked & thanks. I am stunned to hear this sort of thing. Having seen these loons close up they scare me & not just because they are so stupid but because they assume violence will be required to have their way. They welcome violence and are practicing for it. But the thought that there are black people so ignorant of the foundation of the sov cit movement is more depressing.

  71. 71.

    BR

    @Jeffro:

    Maybe some bloggers / thoughtful politicians / etc. could start reminding everyone of that? It seems like in a more instantly-connected always-on news era, what would have been local news is now national news every day, which makes everyone everywhere feel like crime is up when it isn’t.

  74. 74.

    Phylllis

    @lamh36: There was a crackpot guy who was Black in these parts who identified as sovereign a few years ago. He used to come to city council meetings to stir up trouble. Claimed he’d copyrighted his name & sent me a bill for using it in my article for the local paper. I mailed him some fake money from the kiddy party store.

    There was a part of me that wanted to pull him aside and say “Uh dude, do you not realize the origins of sovereign citizen?”

  76. 76.

    Schlemazel Khan

    @BR:
    I have a FB friend who seems to repost every shooting story ever from around the country. I think he believes it shows how bad gun violence is in the nation but the cumulative affect is, IMO, that the nations is a shooting gallery and crime is worse than you could ever imagine. Free of a greater context these stories could convince people we live in the worst of times while the reality there is much less crime now.

    Paul Ryan complained that “this is not the country I grew up in” while complaining about police shootings. He was born in the 80s under Reagan when ~450 cops were shot. That number has decrease under every President since to Obama when the number of cop killings is in the 40s, literally 10% of the country Ryan grew up in.

  77. 77.

    BR

    @Schlemazel Khan:

    Reading your comment frustrates me to no end. Isn’t this context the job of the media? Where is vox with its explainers on how during Reagan’s admin there were 10x the number of killings? Where is Tom Friedman talking about how he talked to a taxi driver about how much worse it is back in country X?

  78. 78.

    BR

    @Schlemazel Khan:

    Even simpler — maybe someone should make a simple infographic on cop killings per presidential term (4 year at a time) and post it on twitter. Seems that some data in picture form is the easiest corrective.

  79. 79.

    Cmm

    @lamh36: the sovereign citizens are an odd bunch. There are white ones and black ones but they don’t generally work together or support each other although they all seem fairly bonkers. We have quite a few black sovcits in the Atlanta area. Any dealing with them at all is the most irritating quicksand like thing you can imagine.

    They also love to use their quasi legal know how to squat in abandoned houses and try to take them over by creating and filing deeds. They also file liens on officers when they get mad about getting a ticket for having their homemade cardboard license tag on their vehicle. I totally hate dealing with them.

  82. 82.

    Percysowner

    So Donnie Loves Chachi and wants to put Charles back In Charge? It’s a strange world.

  84. 84.

    debbie

    @Cmm:

    I was surprised to learn that there was a house full of black sovereign citizens living about a mile away from me. I’m pretty sure they were squatters, but they were totally under the radar until one of them blew his hands off while making bombs. The neighbors were totally unaware of them.

  87. 87.

    cmorenc

    @Keith G:

    Did Trump invent cell phone video?

    This cake has been in the oven for a long time. I am surprised that it has taken this long for the weariness and metastasized anger to engulf the handful of individuals who do not have better angels in their nature. Trump, for all his ills, is not the the creator of this bitter recipe.

    Just because Trump isn’t the creator of this particular cake recipe, and its origins are from long before Trump’s rise, doesn’t at all mean he isn’t a chef stirring a cake mix made according to that old recipe, in order to appeal to the tastes of a large segment of his target customers / voters.

  88. 88.

    sukabi

    @Schlemazel Khan: no more depressing than white people who willfully rewrite history so it won’t make them look so bad, and the generations that follow who continue to revise because the whitewash is still uncomfortable… eta, coming from an old white woman’s perspective.

  89. 89.

    Emma

    @Cmm: @debbie: Jeeeezuz. Although I was aware such people as “sovereign citizens” existed, I have never made the attempt to explore this subculture. Reading your posts, I’m not sure I want to!

    Cmm, you are truly polite when you call them bonkers.

  92. 92.

    rikyrah

    Megan BrilleyVerified account
    ‏@meganbrilley
    Just went to the most recent listed address for the alleged #BatonRouge shooter in KC… A man answered the door with an AK-47

  96. 96.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Emma:

    Cmm is unfailingly polite, as far as I’ve seen, while at the same time she is crystal-clear about her views.

    Cmm, you must have been a wonderful law enforcement officer, and whichever of our many Atlanta suburbs you serve (I could, but won’t, take an educated guess), they are lucky to have you as a cop, a resident, and a member of the community. As a metro Atlanta resident for the past 32 years, I am proud that you’re spreading your insight and experience, and I’m glad to have you as a virtual friend on this blog.

  98. 98.

    lgerard

    @lamh36:

    Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort was overheard by the Weekly Standard in a Starbucks confirming that Gov. Chris Christie was “livid” at not being picked as Trump’s running mate.

    Christie already has a position in the Trump administration

    Ambassador to McDonalds

  100. 100.

    Steve in the ATL

    I’m in Richmond, Virginia today. As I was heading down to monument avenue to admire the second place trophies, I saw a bumper sticker that read, “don’t blame us; we voted for Jefferson davis”. Would it surprise you to learn that it was on a pickup truck? A really big one? That had “country boy” lettered across the top of the windshield?

    Ah, good old Virginie. It’s so nice to be back.

  101. 101.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Howard Beale IV: And I didn’t list the name of the group because when I searched for “New Freedom Group” all I got were links to alcoholics anonymous chapters.

  102. 102.

    Cmm

    @debbie: that description sums those guys up so nicely. “Totally under the radar until one of them blew his hands off…”

    In other news, this was an interesting tidbit in the Kansas City Star’s story about the Baton Rouge suspect being a local…buried several paragraphs in after lots of reporting based on Google and in house search results:

    “On Sunday, a Star reporter knocked on the door of a Kansas City home once listed as a residence for Gavin Long. The reporter was met at the door by a man with a long gun who declined to comment”

    Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article90183857.html#storylink=cpy

  104. 104.

    Ruckus

    @BR:
    The job of the media is not what you think it is but what the people who own the barrel the ink and pixels come in, which has never been any different since the invention of the printing press.
    We’d like to think there is such a thing as journalistic ethics but there isn’t, although a small number of them seem to actually try to abide by what most people expect of them.

  106. 106.

    Cmm

    @Schlemazel Khan: I get the impression that a lot of the black sov cut recruitment has come thru hucksters like the one that got Wesley Snipes jammed up. A few years ago illegal “we can save you from foreclosure” signs were like mushrooms at every intersection in the south side of Atlanta. I’m betting at least some of those phone numbers were for people recruiting for marketing seminars where you spend $99 to have the stuff explained to you all day in a hotel conference room and then shill you for the $499 book with the step by step instructions and $2500 for the sovereign mastery kit….

  107. 107.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Cmm: I think a lot of the Atlanta ones are probably spinoffs of the Children of Noah cult that existed in the area through the 90s.

  108. 108.

    Cmm

    @Emma: if you live in the South, I can tell you everything you need to know about them by saying “bless their hearts” with a sad head shake after explains their beliefs. This Jersey girl has learned a lot in 28 years down here. Though I still hate okra.

  109. 109.

    Cmm

    @SiubhanDuinne: aw shucks thanks SD! There seem to be quite a few ATLiens round these parts. I’d be interested in your educated guesses as to my PD but will neither confirm nor deny for a month or two….

  112. 112.

    Emma

    @Cmm: Oh, yes. I visit Virginia regularly to visit dear friends — first thing I learned was the many uses of “bless (his) her heart.”

  113. 113.

    Cmm

    @Adam L Silverman: excellent possibility–is that the same as the Newabi nutters down in S Georgia?

    One black sov cit giveaway is that they often do a legal name change to add Bey or El at the end of their last names to signify that they have now claimed their real name rather than the corporate entity assigned to them at birth by the gummint. They like to add trademark symbols to their signatures. One of the grounds for taking out liens on court officials, cops and judges is that by making photocopies of their signatures or handmade documents, you have violated their copywriter and now owe them 5 skajillion dollars for each illegal use.

    Bless their hearts.

  115. 115.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Cmm:

    I won’t put my guesses on BJ or anywhere public without your permission. If you want me to email you with my thoughts, let me know at SiubhanDuinne (at) gmail (dot) com. But it’s just a little parlour game for me, so no worries one way or another.

  118. 118.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Helen: From the sublime (PBO) to the disgusting (The Goatee Of Misunderstanding aka Choke Toad). Sheesh.

  119. 119.

    Miss Bianca

    I leave you all for what – 48 hours? – and the world runs even madder. I’m heading back into the mountains right now.

  120. 120.

    Plantsmantx

    After watching a couple of his videos and reading a few of his blogposts, It seems to me that Gavin Long was basically a black version of the “alt-right”, “white genocide” types. He was a self-described “alpha male” who didn’t believe in protesting, and favored bloodshed- his word. He was a misogynist and a homophobe who didn’t believe women belonged at protest demonstrations, and he presented the media’s representation of BLM as “putting homo stuff on there” and wanting “the little softie out there” rather than “a real man” like himself. His blog is full of “MRA”-type bullshit.

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