Gavin Long’s body released to family in Kansas City

The body of Gavin Eugene Long, who killed three police officers in Baton Rouge, La., and wounded three others earlier this month, has been released to his Kansas City family.

The East Baton Rouge Parish coroner’s office said Tuesday that Long’s body was released Monday. Preliminary autopsy results showed he died of multiple gunshot wounds, the office said.

Media reports indicate Long will be buried in Arkansas, but the office could not confirm that.

Many members of Long’s extended family, including his grandmother, are from Arkansas. His mother and other family members live in Kansas City.

Long graduated from Grandview High School in 2005. He served five years in the Marines, including nearly eight months in Iraq in 2008. Long left the military in 2010.

On July 17 — his 29th birthday — Long hunted down and killed the Baton Rouge officers outside a cluster of businesses. In the 10 days before his death, Long traveled from Kansas City into Dallas and Houston before going to Baton Rouge.

On his way to Louisiana, Long stopped in black barbershops and urban neighborhoods handing out his self-published self-help books and talking about the need for young black people to stand up. In Dallas, Long stayed with a close friend with whom he grew up in the Kansas City area.

That friend said Long was angry about the shootings of black men by police officers. While in Dallas, Long watched the shooting of Alton Sterling by Baton Rouge police over and over on a big-screen television.

Authorities in Baton Rouge said Long moved methodically and tactically through the area around the cluster of businesses on the morning, aiming to kill as many officers as he could. A member of the Baton Rouge SWAT team shot Long, ending the attack.

This story was originally published July 26, 2016 at 10:15 AM with the headline "Gavin Long’s body released to family in Kansas City."