Dallas police shootings: 5 officers killed by sniper during protest

On the night of July 7, at least one shooter targeted and killed multiple police officers in Dallas during a protest against recent police shootings. On social media, some people quickly pinned the blame for the shooting on the protests themselves — arguing that the Black Lives Matter movement has incited violence against police officers by increasing social and political scrutiny against cops.

But this is a tremendously simplified view of the world. As Erin Simpson said on Twitter, “I don’t want black men shot at traffic stops. I don’t want cops shot by snipers. I don’t want kids shot at school. I don’t want any of this.”

Dr. Brian Williams, the on-duty ER surgeon who treated the victims of the ambush attack in Dallas, shared a simple message Monday: “This killing, it has to stop.”

It was a powerful and emotional statement from Williams, three days after suspected shooter Micah X. Johnson opened fire at a Dallas Black Lives Matter protest dedicated to the two unarmed black men who were fatally shot by police earlier that week. The attack killed five police officers and injured seven others.

On July 7, at least one sniper opened fire on police officers during a peaceful protest in Dallas over police shootings. The sniper shot 14 people, killing five police officers.

After a couple days, authorities and family have released the names of all the dead. Here’s what we know about those victims.

Hillary Clinton ended her speech on Friday with a quote from the Book of Galatians.

“Let us not grow weary in doing good. For in due season, we shall reap if we do not lose heart,” she said in an address to the historically black American Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia.

The aftermath of the Dallas shooting that killed five police officers has sparked serious reflection across the ideological spectrum. From the way conservative news outlets like the Daily Caller and conservative politicians such as Paul Ryan and Newt Gingrich are talking about gun control and racial justice, real bipartisan progress on criminal justice reform seems within reach.

And then there are politicians like Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R).

While people mourn the black lives killed by police and police killed at the Dallas shooting Thursday night, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) acknowledged that he, like other white Americans, simply can’t understand what it feels like to be black in America and live with a persistent fear of violence.

“It took me a long time, and a number of people talking to me through the years, to get a sense of this: If you are a normal, white American, the truth is you don’t understand being black in America and you instinctively under-estimate the level of discrimination and the level of additional risk,” he said during a CNN interview Friday.

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) gave an emotional speech on the House floor Friday in response to the Dallas shooting that killed five police officers.

“A few perpetrators of evil do not represent us,” he said. “They do not control us. The blame lies with the people who committed these vicious acts, and no one else.”

After a sniper killed five police officers on Thursday at protest in Dallas against the recent police shootings of two black men, most of the nation came together to express shock and horror. The New York Post, that city’s conservative tabloid of record, decided to take a somewhat different approach — and declared America to be in a state of civil war:

The cover appears to suggest that protesters were responsible for the violence, even though Dallas police said the shots came from outside the protests and the people who organized the protest have explicitly stated that their organization “does not condone violence against any human being, and we condemn anyone who wants to commit violence.”

Right before a horrifying shooting killed five police officers, people in Dallas were marching in the streets to protest police violence — specifically, the killings this week of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, Minnesota.

But until sniper fire rang out from nearby rooftops, the protest itself seemed to be a model of goodwill between police and protesters.

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump canceled campaign appearances scheduled for Friday and released a statement saying that “racial tensions have gotten worse, not better,” in the wake of a protest turned shooting that killed five police officers late Thursday night in Dallas.

At the Dallas demonstration about the senseless killing of black people by the police, 12 police officers were shot and were five killed after snipers targeted white police officers in an ambush attack.

The morning after five police officers were killed and nine people injured when a protest against police violence turned into a mass shooting, Dallas police aren’t yet releasing much information about the suspects.

But police have relayed some information about one suspect, who was killed by police after a standoff in a parking garage at El Centro Community College. The suspect told the hostage negotiator he wanted to kill white people and white police officers in particular, Dallas Police Chief David Brown said at a news conference at 7:30 am Central time Friday.

In the aftermath of the mass shooting in Dallas that killed multiple police officers, there is one thing policymakers could do to prevent the number of deaths of officers on the line of duty: limit access to guns.

That was the suggestion of a study from 2015. The study, published in the American Journal of Public Health, looked at federal data for firearm ownership and homicides of police officers across the US over 15 years. It found that states with more gun ownership had more cops killed in homicides: Every 10 percent increase in firearm ownership correlated with 10 additional officers killed in homicides over the 15-year study period.

In the aftermath of the mass shooting in Dallas and the police shootings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, much of the reaction has been highly polarized, with some people blaming Black Lives Matter protesters for supposedly inciting violence against police officers.

But it isn’t necessarily that simple, as Erin Simpson explained on Twitter: