baton rouge shooting
© Mike Kunzelman, APAuthorities talk to the driver of a car near an area where several officers were shot while on duty less than a mile from police headquarters on July 17, 2016.
Three police officers have been shot dead in Baton Rouge, La., and others may have been wounded, authorities said Sunday.

The three officers were shot near the department headquarters, Baton Route Mayor Kip Holden told MSNBC. At least four others were injured in the shooting, he said.

"They are investigating," he said. "Right now we are trying to get our arms around everything."

Two Baton Rouge police officers and one East Baton Rouge sheriff's deputy are dead, according to WBRZ-TV's Michael Vinsanau.

The gunman was shot, a Louisiana State Police spokesman said, but his condition was not immediately clear.

Both lanes of Airline Highway are shut down from Goodwood Boulevard to Old Hammond Highway and from Old Hammond to Drusilla Drive, according to East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Casey Rayborn Hicks. The scene is still active, Hicks told The Advocate.


About 20 police officers wearing bulletproof vests are near the scene and a helicopter was flying overhead, the paper reported.

The Baton Rouge mayor's office urged urged people to stay home, stay off the streets for now in immediate wake of police shooting, according to The Advocate.

A witness told WBRZ-TV that a man was dressed in black with his face covered was shooting indiscriminately when he walked out between a convenience store and car wash across from Hammond Air Plaza. Police closed the streets between the police department's headquarters and Interstate 12.

Vinsanau of WBRZ tweeted that more than a dozen marked and unmarked police cars have sped to the scene, and that a SWAT team is on location. State police armed with rifles are posted blocks away, Vinsanau tweeted.


Numerous authorities are responding. A large manhunt began immediately, WBRZ reported.

Baton Rouge police have been under scrutiny after officers fatally shot Alton Sterling, 37, on July 5 while he was pinned to the ground. Sterling was black and the officers involved were white. Sterling's funeral was Friday. Police have said they thought he was reaching for a gun.