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Baton Rouge Police Officers Montrell Jackson and Matthew Gerald and East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Deputy Brad Garafola were fatally shot by a gunman outside a convenience store in Baton Rouge. Three other officers were injured. WWL
This image from YouTube shows Gavin Long, 29, the man named as the shooter of three police officers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Three other officers were wounded. Long was killed in an exchange of gunfire with police.(Photo: Handout, AFP/Getty Images)
The mother of the Iraq War veteran who killed three officers in Baton Rouge on Sunday said she urged<span style="color: Red;">*</span>him to<span style="color: Red;">*</span>seek help<span style="color: Red;">*</span>from the Department of Veterans Affairs after he left the Marine Corps, but he returned unhappy with the care, according to an interview with PBS talk<span style="color: Red;">*</span>show host Tavis Smiley.
"They didn't want to help me,"<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Corine Woodley said her son, Gavin Long, told<span style="color: Red;">*</span>her<span style="color: Red;">*</span>after visiting a<span style="color: Red;">*</span>VA facility,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>according to Smiley's notes. "They only help people at the top, the 1%."
Long,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>an African American who deployed to Iraq in 2008-09,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>was shot to death after opening<span style="color: Red;">*</span>fire on police on a busy commercial street.
USA TODAY
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Woodley said she feared he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, although he did not see combat while in Iraq.
The VA issued a statement this week saying Long had "a number of contacts" with the agency's health care system<span style="color: Red;">*</span>from 2008 to August<span style="color: Red;">*</span>2013. The agency declined to provide details, citing medical privacy laws.
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The VA has come under fire for years over<span style="color: Red;">*</span>its treatment of veterans returning from war. Problems include lack of staffing and poor facilities, an overburdened suicide hotline and<span style="color: Red;">*</span>long wait times to get appointments. The latter problem was amplified by a scandal over<span style="color: Red;">*</span>false reports at some facilities that made appointment wait times seems shorter than they actually were.
Woodley contacted Smiley<span style="color: Red;">*</span>on Monday. "I would like to shed some light on the situation," she wrote in an<span style="color: Red;">*</span>email Smiley shared with USA TODAY. Smiley talked to her on Tuesday and Wednesday and will interview her live on his PBS show Thursday night.
USA TODAY
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According to his notes, Woodley<span style="color: Red;">*</span>described a troubled son who seemed at times<span style="color: Red;">*</span>paranoid, believing he was "being followed and watched" and "targeted by undercover cops." Long<span style="color: Red;">*</span>ambushed the Baton Rouge police on his 29th birthday.
Woodley told Smiley that her son<span style="color: Red;">*</span>anguished over officer-involved slayings<span style="color: Red;">*</span>of black civilians<span style="color: Red;">*</span>and said<span style="color: Red;">*</span>that "cops always get off free at the end."
She said he<span style="color: Red;">*</span>had grown angry over the July 6 killing of Philando Castile by a police officer in Falcon Heights, Minn., where Castile's last moments as he lay<span style="color: Red;">*</span>dying in his car<span style="color: Red;">*</span>were captured on a dramatic video by his girlfriend. Long complained to his mother that it seemed as if Castile had followed the police officer's orders<span style="color: Red;">*</span>but was still shot to death.
"If you stand there while someone is treated badly and you do nothing, you are as guilty as the person who inflicted the pain," he told her.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>"I am a man.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>I'm just as guilty as anyone else if I don't do anything."
USA TODAY
Baton Rouge shooter may have embraced bizarre outlook
From a very young age, her son was keenly aware of even subtle<span style="color: Red;">*</span>acts of discrimination against black people, Woodley said.
When he left the Marine Corps, where he reached the rank of sergeant, Long wanted to teach black history and traveled to Africa for two years, visiting Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Tanzania and Uganda, camping<span style="color: Red;">*</span>in villages and delivering<span style="color: Red;">*</span>food to children.
Back home<span style="color: Red;">*</span>he grew increasingly disenchanted.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>"Gavin didn't see any progress in America with Obama as president. He viewed Obama as a puppet. He believed blacks made no progress economically under Obama."
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He told his mother that he got "funny looks" from white people when he took his gun to a shooting range to practice and asked, "Why is it OK for white people to have guns, but not black people?"
Woodley said her son was fascinated by<span style="color: Red;">*</span>protest groups and closely followed the Occupy Wall Street Movement.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>But he also believed that peaceful demonstrations<span style="color: Red;">*</span>accomplished little and grew increasingly angry with each news story about black civilians killed by police officers. "Every cop killing pushed him over the edge," Woodley told Smiley.
Smiley is a member of the Board of Contributors of USA TODAY's Opinion section.
USA TODAY
Listen to the Baton Rouge police killer: Tavis Smiley
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