The recent police-related violence in the United States has unveiled the hard-healing wounds of American society -- racial inequality and violent policing.
VIOLENCE MET BY VIOLENCE
In Baton Rouge, the capital city of the southern state of Louisiana, an ex-Marine dressed in black and carrying extra ammunition killed three police officers and injured another three on Sunday morning, less than two weeks after a black man was killed by the city's police.
The suspect, identified as Gavin Long of Kansas City, 29, was shot dead at the scene.
Long was confirmed to be the lone gunman, who attacked the policemen at a gas station along a highway near the local police headquarters after they allegedly acted upon a 911 call, according to the local police.
Police are still investigating the motive of the shooting. It is not known whether the shooting is linked to anger at the police killings of two black men -- Alton Sterling, 37, in Baton Rouge on July 5, and Philando Castile, 32, near St. Paul, Minnesota, on July 6.
Thousands of people have protested Sterling's death, and Baton Rouge police arrested more than 200 demonstrators.
Sunday's shooting is also the second serious shooting incident that killed police officers after a black former U.S. soldier killed five police officers in a peaceful protest on July 7 in Dallas denouncing the Sterling and Castile slayings.
In a speech delivered from the White House on the shooting in Baton Rouge, U.S. President Barack Obama said that, though divisions exist in the country, everyone should now "focus on words and actions that can unite this country rather than divide it further."
Mayor of Baton Rouge, Kip Holden, described the shooting as "a nightmare" all over again in the city.
Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards also condemned the shooting, saying in a statement that the shooting was "an unspeakable and unjustified attack on all of us at a time when we need unity and healing."
HARD-HEALING SOCIAL WOUNDS
The shootings have escalated the tensions between the black community and police in the United States, where nationwide protests have mounted since a black teenager was shot dead by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, in August 2014.
