The shots were fired around 9 am Sunday morning, kicking off a manhunt for the shooter.

Officials confirm that several Baton Rouge Police Officers and East Baton Rouge Parish sheriff's deputies were struck during the gunfire.

“The scene seems to be contained right now, but it is still active,” said Sergeant Don Coppola, a spokesman for the Baton Rouge Police Department. “We’re asking everyone to stay out of the area.”

Investigators are working to determine if more than one shooter was possibly involved.

On July 5, 2016, Alton Sterling was shot several times and killed in Baton Rouge by a white officer, one of two consecutive police killings that led to mass protests against racial bias in law enforcement.

Friends and family pay their respects as they attend the funeral of Alton Sterling at Southern University on July 15, 2016 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Sterling was shot by a police officer in front of the Triple S Food Mart in Baton Rouge on July 5th. (AFP photo)

One day after Sterling’s death, Philando Castile was fatally shot by police in his car in Falcon Heights, Minnesota.

On Friday, five policemen were killed and seven others wounded by a black gunman in Dallas, Texas, during a protest against police brutality and racial profiling of African Americans.

The killings have renewed racial tensions that have flared repeatedly across the US since the 2014 police killing of unarmed black teen Michael Brown in Missouri.

Police in the United States killed over 1,150 people in 2015, with the largest police departments disproportionately killing at least 321 African Americans, according to data compiled by an activist group that runs the Mapping Police Violence project.

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