Baton Rouge hootingShooter motivated by 1960s-era Black Nationalism
Gavin long, 29, who shot and killed three policemen in Baton Rouge before being fatally shot by the police, appears to have been motivated by 1960s-era Black Nationalism, which called on African Americans to take a strong, even violent, stance against mistreatment by authorities. Long left a long trail of on-line material, both postings and videos. In another video, referring to Native Americans, Long said, “When they were extincted [sic] by the same people that run this country, my question to you, just something you can think about: At what point should they have stood up?”
Black Panther Party founders Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton // Source: wikipedia.org
Gavin long, 29, who shot and killed three policemen in Baton Rouge before being fatally shot by the police, appears to have been motivated by 1960s-era Black Nationalism, which called on African Americans to take a strong, even violent, stance against mistreatment by authorities.
Long left a long trail of on-line material, both postings and videos. Thus, five days after the fatal shooting of five police officers in Dallas, Long posted a video on YouTube to express his views on the incident: “I’m not gonna harp on that, you know, with a brother killing the police. You get what I’m saying?” Long said. “That’s, it’s justice.”
In another video, referring to Native Americans, Long said, “When they were extincted by the same people that run this country, my question to you, just something you can think about: At what point should they have stood up?”
In another video, he praised the Deacons for Defense — a group of African Americans who formed an armed self-defense group during the civil rights movement of the 1960s — as men who “when they kids was also getting killed by cops and other white supremacy members, they stood up and stood firm.”
“It’s a time for peace, but it’s a time for war, and most of the times when you want peace, you got to go to war,” Long said in another video. “You see what I’m saying?”
The Daily Beast notes that the online videos and social media postings suggest Long endorsed violent methods to confront those in power. In one video – appearing to have been filmed in Dallas after the shooting of police officers there — he said that demonstrations alone had “never worked, and it never will,” and praised Nat Turner, who led a slave rebellion, and Malcolm X.
“If you all want to keep protesting, do that, but for the serious ones, the real ones, the alpha ones, we know what it’s gonna take,” Long said. “It’s only fighting back or money. That’s all they care about. Revenue and blood.”
Police believe Long was in Baton Rouge to promote a self-help book he wrote and self-published. The book, “The Cosmo Way: A W(H)olistic Guide for the Total Transformation of Melanated People,” is written under the pen name Cosmo Setepenra. In the introduction, Long claimed that he had a “spiritual revelation” while in college and soon sold his cars and gave away his “material possessions,” and took a trip to Africa — his “ancestral homeland.” He wrote in the book that he traveled across the continent learning from its “native spiritual practitioners and elder holistic healers” and was concerned in particular that people with darker skin lead healthy, holistic lifestyles.
“Not only have we not been taught how to treat our bodies and spirits in order to live a healthy and holistic lifestyle, we have also lost touch with the ancient teachings of our spiritual elders that would help us to live a healthy holistic life in harmony with nature,” he wrote.
In a twitter message he sent to his followers a few days before the shooting, Long appears calm in the face of death. “Just bc you wake up every morning doesn’t mean that you’re living,” he posted. “And just bc you shed your physical body doesn’t mean that you’re dead.”
