There were no immediate indications the military service of the alleged killers of police officers in Baton Rouge and Dallas influenced their actions, a spokesman for the Defense Department tells Military.com.
“In terms of a direct connection of military service and what’s taken place, I’m not aware that there’s a connection,” Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook tells the military membership organization and news outlet.
In addition, the military sees no immediate need to review procedures for transitioning service members to civilian life to determine possible tendencies to violence, Cook says.
“They were beyond their active duty service with the Department of Defense,” he says of the shooters.
Gavin Eugene Long, a former Marine sergeant, on Sunday shot and killed Montrell Jackson, 32, and Matthew Gerald, 41, of the Baton Rouge Police Department; and Brad Garafola, a 45-year-old deputy with the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Office. He also wounded one other officer and two deputies, one of whom, Nicholas Tullier, is still in critical condition with gunshot wounds to the head and torso. A spokeswoman for Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center says there is no update this morning on Tullier’s condition.
Micah Johnson, a former private first class in the Army Reserve, also this month shot and killed five officers in Dallas, two of whom were fellow veterans.
“I’m not aware of any indication that their military service necessarily played any role in the events, the tragic events, that played out in Baton Rouge and Dallas,” Cook says. “I’m not aware of a connection here at this point and I don’t want to suggest that there is one.”
His comments came Monday, the same day Louisiana law enforcement officials detailed the calculated attack in Baton Rouge.
“This was a diabolical attack on the very fabric of society, and that is not hyperbole, that is not an overstatement,” Gov. John Bel Edwards said.
Meanwhile, friends and relatives continue to remember and mourn the three men killed in Sunday’s attack. The Associated Press has a complete story on the officers killed—all of whom lived in the Denham Springs area—and how they’re being remembered.
