BATON ROUGE, La. — When protests erupted here over a black man’s killing during a struggle with two white police officers, Baton Rouge police officer Matthew Gerald made a promise to an old friend who urged him to be careful.
“I’m going to do what I got to do to keep you all safe, old boy,” Gerald told Dave Mulkey, his childhood friend and former roommate.
That text message was the last Mulkey received from Gerald before a lone gunman enraged by recent police shootings killed the 41-year-old rookie.