Subscribe
NewsOne Featured Video
CLOSE

A Baton Rouge, Louisiana law enforcement official, who was injured in a shooting incident last year that claimed the lives of three colleagues, filed a lawsuit against leaders of the Black Lives Matter collective, Reuters reports.

Gavin Long, an ex-Marine sergeant, gunned down police officers on July 17, 2016–killing three and wounding three others–before a SWAT team member  before he was fatally shot and killed Long, NBC News reported.

The officer, who claims that BLM leaders sparked the violence, filed a lawsuit against DeRay McKesson and others at a U.S. district court in Louisiana. The lawsuit says the officer was wounded by “a person violently protesting against police, and which violence was caused or contributed to by the leaders of and by ‘BLACK LIVES MATTER’,” according to Reuters.

As part of the lawsuit, he’s asking for $75,000 in damages.

Reuters reported that McKesson has yet to address the lawsuit, but other leaders within Black Lives Matter said they would never encourage violence against police officers.

Racial tensions were heightened in Baton Rouge and across the nation in July 2016 after video footage surfaced of two police officers involved in the fatal shooting of 37-year-old Alton Sterling.

This isn’t the first time that McKesson and other activists have been involved in legal battles in Baton Rouge. Last year, he filed a lawsuit against the city after 200 protesters were arrested during a demonstration that was held to bring awareness to police brutality.

Earlier this week, on the one-year anniversary of Alton Sterling’s death, protesters were reportedly pepper sprayed, tasered and arrested, while holding a demonstration that honored his life.

SOURCE: Reuters, NBC News

SEE ALSO:

Black Lives Matter Responds To Claims Of A Dying Movement

Baton Rouge Police Arrest Protesters During March Marking Anniversary Of Alton Sterling Killing

147 Black Men And Boys Killed By Police
Police killings 2020
146 photos