Motive still unknown.
A former Marine who ambushed and killed three Baton Rouge law enforcement officers last month never saw combat in Iraq, but told doctors he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder because a buddy showed him videos of maimed and decapitated bodies, according to newly released Veterans Health Administration medical records.
Gavin Long’s doctors at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Kansas City, Missouri, diagnosed him in November 2011 as suffering from an “adjustment disorder with depressed mood,” but not PTSD, according to documents provided to The Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act.
During his PTSD evaluation, the VA noted Long avoided movies about the war and was “unable to experience tenderness, loving feelings.” It also had a cryptic notation about some “sense of foreshortened future.”
Long, a black military veteran from Kansas City, Missouri, shot and killed three law enforcement officers and wounded three others on July 17 outside a Baton Rouge convenience store. Long had posted rambling internet videos calling for violence in response to police treatment of African-Americans, which he said constituted “oppression.”
Two Baton Rouge police officers — 32-year-old Montrell Jackson and 41-year-old Matthew Gerald — and 45-year-old East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Office Deputy Brad Garafola were killed in the shooting.
Long served in the Marines from 2005 to 2010, including a seven-month stint in 2008 in Iraq. He was a data network specialist, and told VA doctors he witnessed casualties but did not fight in combat, according to his medical records.
Long had gone to the VA in 2011 complaining about trouble falling and staying asleep. He avoided crowds and experienced “suspiciousness of others,” according to the documents. Family members reported he was more aggressive and angered easily, noting these were issues his ex-wife complained about.
“He feels sad but claims he does not know what he feels sad about,” his medical file noted.
In 2011, his doctor wrote that he “informed patient that in this writer’s opinion, he did not meet the … criteria for PTSD.” He was prescribed the antidepressant citalopram. The VA also informed him about its mental health clinic and its 24-hour services in the area.