On Sunday, Already killing three law enforcement officers and the fatal shooting of a black man by police earlier this month, Baton Rouge was a city divided between the police and the policed.
Tensions in Louisiana’s state capital go back years. For many residents, the police force has been viewed as overly aggressive and unrepresentative of a city where over half the 230,000 residents are black and where racial problems date back decades.
Michele Fournet, a veteran Baton Rouge criminal defense lawyer said, Minorities are “very wary of police and often afraid of them.”