This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

A law enforcement official said investigators found a copy of an Adolf Hitler speech in the home of a 23-year-old white man arrested on Tuesday and accused of killing two black men and firing on a black family.

'Strong possibility' of racial motivation in Baton Rouge killings, police say Read more

Kenneth James Gleason was led away from the Baton Rouge police department in handcuffs just before authorities held a news conference to announce that he would be charged with first-degree murder in the shooting deaths last week of a homeless man and a dishwasher who was walking to work.

“I feel confident that this killer would have killed again,” interim police chief Jonny Dunnam said.

Authorities found a copy of the Hitler speech during a search of Gleason’s home over the weekend, according to the law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was not finished.

Asked whether police suspected that race was a motive for the shootings, Sgt L’Jean McKneely said: “We’re not completely closed off to that. We’re looking at all possibilities at this time, so we’re not going to just pinpoint that.”

District attorney Hillar Moore said his office could seek the death penalty. “It appears to be cold, calculated, planned [against] people who were unarmed and defenseless,” he said. “We don’t need to prove motive. There are a lot of things that are unanswered.”

No one was injured when someone fired multiple times into the home of a black family in his neighborhood, authorities said. It was not clear if Gleason knew the family.

In the other shootings, police said, the suspect fired from his car then walked up to the victims as they were lying on the ground and fired again multiple times. Neither victim had any prior relationship with Gleason.

The first fatal shooting occurred on 12 September when 59-year-old Bruce Cofield, who was homeless, was shot. The second happened last Thursday night when 49-year-old Donald Smart was killed while walking to his job as a dishwasher at a cafe popular with Louisiana State University students.

The Louisiana capital was already subject to a surge in violence. The number of homicides in East Baton Rouge Parish has already surpassed last year’s total of 62, the Advocate newspaper reported earlier this month.

“Baton Rouge has been through a lot of turmoil in the last year,” the police chief said. “Had there not been a swift conclusion to this case, I feel confident that this killer probably would have killed again. He could have potentially created a tear in the fabric that holds this community together.”

Racial tensions roiled the city in the summer of 2016 when a black man, Alton Sterling, was shot dead by white police officers outside a convenience store. About two weeks later, a black gunman targeted police in an ambush, killing three officers and wounding three before he was shot dead.

The city of about 229,000 is about 55% black and 40% white.

Gleason did not appear to have any active social media profiles. A spokesman at Louisiana State University said a student by that name attended from the fall of 2013 to the fall of 2014 before withdrawing. He had transferred to LSU from Baton Rouge Community College.

During the search of Gleason’s home, authorities also found 9g of marijuana and vials of human growth hormone, according to a police document.