Vigil held in honor of slain Baton Rouge officers

'We love you and we respect you,' pastor tells mourning officers

BATON ROUGE, LA – Portraits of the three slain Baton Rouge officers were front and center at a vigil inside a church Tuesday night.

"Pray for those officers and their families, their protection and the people in our community," a pastor said. "Tonight, Father, we lift up these families that are suffering so much."

Hundreds packed into the church for the vigil.

On Sunday a masked gunman was caught on surveillance cameras stalking, then shooting six officers. 

Three of those officers survived and three died. 

During the service the pastor took a moment to single out  grieving officers.

"We want to say that we love you and we respect you," he said.

The shooting occurred two weeks after Alton Sterling was killed by police while selling CDs outside a Baton Rouge convenience store.

A video of the incident went viral and sparked outrage.

"This is actually our first time out in Baton Rouge since the Alton shooting," Paige Burns said. "We've just tried to stay home and we don't know what's going to happen next so we're just trying to be cautious."

Baton Rouge resident Javier Spaulding said many in the city are scared since the shootings.

"They scared, we scared, the whole city scared," he said. "That's the only thing that done changed."

 


About the Author:

Terrell Forney joined Local 10 News in October 2005 as a general assignment reporter. He was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, but a desire to escape the harsh winters of the north brought him to South Florida.