After police killed a man outside a convenience store and protesters filled the streets, the first black mayor of the Louisiana capital seemed to be conspicuously missing. Kip Holden’s absence was so glaring that demonstrators called for his resignation.
But, as The Associated Press reports, with the shooting deaths of three law enforcement officers on Sunday, the 63-year-old Democrat has become more visible, standing up for his police force and accepting condolences from mayors across the country, including the leaders of Orlando and Dallas, and from President Barack Obama.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Holden vowed Wednesday to unify Baton Rouge after two weeks of violence and anguish.
The day the officers were killed “was one of the worst days in the history of Baton Rouge” and in his 12 years as mayor, Holden says.
He says he was confident that the city would endure.
“It’s been trying, but I have not shed any tears because I know we will win out,” he says from his downtown office.
Citing the Bible, as he does often, Holden quoted Job: “Yet though you slay me, I will rise again,” he says. “Yet though those officers have been slain, Baton Rouge will rise again.”
The mayor was getting ready to go to church Sunday when he got a call from his sister about ambulances on Airline Highway, a busy thoroughfare.
At the hospital, grief poured out. The mother of a sheriff’s deputy killed in the shootout held a child in her arms and says she didn’t know how she could go forward. The deputy’s young daughter couldn’t believe her father wasn’t coming home.
“Dad’s not dead,” Holden recalls the girl saying, “and he’s coming home this afternoon.”
He describes the experience as “like having your insides ripped out.”
The Associated Press has the full story.
