Editor’s Note: The story originally appeared in The Kansas City Star (Tribune News Service).
The gunman suspected of killing three Baton Rouge law enforcement officers Sunday morning and wounding three other others has been identified as Gavin Eugene Long of Kansas City.
Police said Long apparently died in a shootout with police on his 29th birthday.
A Star reporter on Sunday afternoon knocked on the door of a Kansas City home once listed as a residence for Gavin Long. The reporter was met at the door by a man with a long gun who declined to comment.
Long left the Marines in 2010 with an honorable discharge, according to CBS News, which cited an unnamed military source. His rank was E-5 (sergeant).
A Gavin Long graduated in 2005 from Grandview High School, according to The Star’s library. A Gavin Eugene Long of Kansas City was on the dean’s list of the University of Alabama in 2012, according to the university’s website.
According to archives, The Star published a marriage announcement for Aireyona Osha Hill and Gavin Eugene Long on July 22, 2009.
Court records show that Long filed for divorce from his wife in 2011. Records suggest the couple did not have children.
No one was at the home where his ex-wife last lived. Neighbors said the couple had moved out some time ago but occasionally visited the three-story brown-colored house.
While Long appeared to have little presence on social media using his birth name, he left an online trail linking to various social media accounts and websites that reference the online identity “Cosmo Setepenra.” The domain for these accounts and websites are registered under the name Gavin Long and list a Kansas City address.
A phone number listed for the domain convoswithcosmo.club was also used in websites where Long apparently used the identity of Cosmo Setepenra. No person with the name Cosmo Setepenra appeared to be otherwise listed in Kansas City or elsewhere.
As Cosmos, a self-proclaimed “freedom strategist, mental game coach, nutritionist, author and spiritual advisor,” Long shared his perspective frequently on platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and a personal website that touted the “Convos with Cosmo.”
On his website, “Convos with Cosmos,” he wrote blog posts about sex, health and entertainment and appeared to sell holistic health coaching sessions. In recent weeks, he had shared commentary about high-profile officer involved shootings, including Alton Sterling, who was shot by police outside a Baton Rouge gas station earlier this month.
He told a YouTube audience that he traveled to Dallas before the police shooting and was in the city during a sniper attack that killed five officers.
He opined on how history shows how “100 percent of revolutions, of victims fighting their oppression, from victims fighting their bullies, 100 percent have been successful through fighting back, through bloodshed. Zero have been successful just over simply protesting. It doesn’t…it has never worked and it never will. You got to fight back.”
He encouraged “real” and “alpha” individuals who wanted change to take a different tactic in invoking change.
“It’s only fighting back or money,” Long said. “That’s all they care about. Revenue and blood. Revenue and blood. Revenue and blood.”
Recent tweets seemed to reference his desire to see a more powerful, unified force combat white power and “elevate” black people.
“Power doesn’t respect weakness. Power only respects Power.
# Alton # Castile,” he tweeted on July 7.
He also tweeted:
“Violence is not THE answer (its a answer), but at what point do you stand up so that your people dont become the Native Americans…EXTINCT?” and “Just bc you wake up every morning doesn’t mean that you’re living. And just bc you shed your physical body doesn’t mean that you’re dead.”
Authorities initially believed that two other assailants might be at large, but hours later said the dead gunman was the only person who fired at the officers.
The local FBI office is assisting with the investigation stemming from the shooting earlier Sunday. However, details of their investigation were not released, said Bridget Patton, spokeswoman for the FBI in Kansas City.
© 2016 The Kansas City Star (Kansas City, Mo.). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.