BATON ROUGE, La. — Gavin Long considered himself a spiritual leader and revolutionary, a man willing to take action while others focused on protests.
Long, who killed two police officers and a sheriff’s deputy in Baton Rouge on Sunday, was a college-educated former Marine sergeant who served in Iraq, receiving a medal for good conduct. But he also created an erratic online persona known as Cosmo Setepenra, ranting about what he considered oppression and advocating for violence.