Deputy wounded in ambush moved to new hospital

BATON ROUGE, La. – A sheriff’s deputy who was critically wounded in a shootout that killed three other Baton Rouge, Louisiana, law-enforcement officers in the summer was transferred Wednesday to a rehabilitation hospital in Texas.

East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Deputy Nicholas Tullier had been treated at a hospital in Baton Rouge since the July 17 shooting. Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center said in a statement that Tullier was discharged Wednesday morning and transferred to a hospital in Houston.

A lone gunman, 29-year-old Gavin Long, fatally shot two Baton Rouge police officers and one sheriff’s deputy before a SWAT officer gunned down Long. Two other officers besides Tullier were wounded in the attack outside a convenience store.

Police said Long, an Army veteran from Kansas City, Missouri, was seeking out law enforcement and ambushed the officers. Tullier was shot in the head and stomach in his patrol car, authorities said.

“It has been our honour to serve Deputy Tullier, and we pray for his continued healing as he begins the next phase of his recovery,” Our Lady of the Lake President and CEO K. Scott Wester said in a statement.

The shooting occurred less than two weeks after 37-year-old Alton Sterling, a black man, was fatally shot by police in Baton Rouge in a confrontation that sparked nightly protests and has reverberated nationwide.

Tullier, a father of two teenage sons, joined the sheriff’s office nearly two decades ago, serving for the past 10 years in the traffic division.

Relatives of the slain and wounded officers met privately with President Barack Obama during his visit to Baton Rouge in August. Tullier’s father, James, has said the president introduced him to his personal physician, who called him to discuss options for transferring his son to a rehabilitation facility.