Ex-Marine who shot dead three cops in ambush filmed rants calling for black people to kill police days before shootings
Gavin Long began posting series of ranting videos online after leaving elite Marines as a sergeant in 2010
THE ex-US Marine who gunned down three cops on his birthday recorded a chilling video just days ago stating that bloodshed was the only way to win against oppression.
Former Marine Corps Sgt Gavin Long – who also went by the name Cosmo Ausar Setepenra – supported radical groups and even PRAISED Dallas cop killer Micah X Johnson.
He admitted being part of the group Nation of Islam in one of his YouTube videos
After leaving the Marines he claimed he experienced a spiritual awakening, turning into a “life coach” who wrote books and gave rambling podcasts and video sermons about civil rights.
In one YouTube video – released just last week after the Dallas shootings – the divorced squaddie talked of how the war for minorities was only ever won when blood was spilled.
He said: “One hundred per cent of revolutions, of victims fighting their oppressors, from victims fighting their bullies, have been successful through fighting back through bloodshed.
“Zero have been successful through simply protesting. It has never been successful and it never will.
“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 going to take.
“It's only fighting back or money. That's all they care about. Revenue and blood. Nothing else.
“That's why I don't go to protests, because I know I speak well, I'm articulate, I can motivate, I can inspire, and those are the ones they arrest.
“So I know they'd try to arrest me and I know I would die right there because you're not going to kidnap me. That's what Malcolm (X) did. You've got to stand - you've got to stand on your rights.”
Warped Long, clad all in black and wearing body armour, used an AR-15 rifle to gun down cops Montrell Jackson, 32, Matthew Gerald, 41, , Brad Garafola, 45, in Baton Rouge on Sunday morning.
He carried out the mass shooting on his 29th birthday.
Investigators believe his “meticulous” and “planned” ambush was specifically designed to kill as many cops as possible.
Witnesses said the maniac was wearing an all-black tactical outfit complete with balaclava and extra bullet clips.
Josh Godwin, 38, who lives in a house that looks directly onto the Beauty Supply store car park where the shootout took place, said: “He was wearing a balaclava. You could just eyes
“This was planned. This was an ambush absolutely - he wanted to kill police officers. The men that died were very brave - they probably saved lives that day.”
The Baton Rouge killings bore shocking similarities to ex-US army reservist Johnson’s slaying of five police officers in Dallas.
One day after Johnson’s sick attack, Long posted a picture of him on Twitter and said: “The Shooter was NOT WHITE, He was one of us! #My religion is Justice.”
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The gunman grew up in Kansas City, Missouri, where classmates described him as quiet and reclusive.
He joined the US Marine Corps aged 18 as a data specialist in 2005, rising to the rank of sergeant and undertaking one tour of Iraq, for seven months in June 2008.
Long was given an honourable discharge in 2010 and earned several awards – including the Iraq Campaign Medal, National Defense Service Medal and Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal.
In July 2009 he married wife Aireyona Hill in San Diego, California, near his military base, but the couple divorced two years later.
Stunned Aireyona was believed to be in hiding last night.
After leaving the military he claimed to have gone through a spiritual awakening and toured Africa for two years – visiting Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya and Egypt.
He wrote three lifestyle books and began abstaining from sex.
When he returned one pal said: “He had gone full-on anti-government and anti-establishment.”
In raging podcasts and videos, where he was shown wearing a gun holster, he used the racist slang term “crackers” and promoted violence.
He joined the Nation of Islam and also declared himself a “Sovereign Citizen” - a movement that believes the government and police hold no authority over them.
In 2011 the FBI classed the citizen group as “a domestic terrorist movement”.
The loner is believed to have travelled to Dallas at the time of the cop shootings, on July 7, before arriving in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, six days ago.
He picked the city as his target after black CD seller Alton Sterling, 37, was shot and killed in Baton Rouge on July 5 – sparking the Black Lives Matter protests and Dallas murders.
Last Monday, Long sent out an email to friends expressing his thoughts about Sterling’s killing and demanding body camera footage of cops be released.
He said: “The spirit brought me something today that I haven’t heard one person ask yet. And that is to demand to see the bodycam video from Alton Sterlin’s (sic) shooting.”
In another net rant he also claimed he would have shot at cops killing Sterling.
His last tweet – posted hours before his rampage – said: “Just bc (sic) you wake up every morning doesn't mean that you're living.
“And just bc (sic) you shed your physical body doesn't mean that you're dead.”
Yesterday a man with a GUN declined to speak to reporters at the door of Long’s family address in Kansas City – before it was searched by the FBI.
Special agents also took away items from another address in the city linked to Long.
Mae Hill, his former mother-in-law, yesterday claimed she did not know the killer had been married to her daughter.
She said: “Nobody deserves to die. Aireyona is not a violent person. She’s probably devastated at this point in time. I’m going to continue trying to get hold of her - I need to see how she’s doing.”
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