![]() The killings have spurred almost two years of largely peaceful street protests. The Thursday night killings, at the end of a protest over this week’s pair of fatal shootings of black men by police in Louisiana and Minnesota, added anxiety and fear to the national debate over excessive police force, racial disparities in the justice system and gun violence.Ī long string of killings of black men by police in cities including Ferguson, Missouri, New York, Baltimore and Chicago have given rise to the Black Lives Matter movement against excessive police force. Philando Castile, 32, was shot dead by a police officer at a traffic stop near Minneapolis on Thursday after being pulled over for a broken taillight.Īnother black man, Alton Sterling, died in similar circumstances earlier in the week in Louisiana.Īfter news of the Dallas shooting came to light, President Barack Obama, in Poland for the NATO Summit, fronted the media and reiterated his stance on assault weapons.DALLAS: At least one sniper killed five Dallas police officers and wounded another seven in a racially charged attack that ended when police used a robot carrying a bomb to kill him, the city’s shaken police chief said on Friday. It is, however, much more fluid and organic than something like the civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King Jr in the 1960s and is therefore a harder movement to follow and to really understand. It has become a catch cry for those who are angry about the disproportionately high number of African-American people who had been killed. In addition to the protest in Dallas, there have also been demonstrations in New York's Times Square.Īllegations of racial bias by US police reached fever pitch after the death of black teenager Trayvon Martin in 2012 and public outcry sparked the Black Lives Matter movement, which started as a hashtag on social media. The most recent tension rose after the deaths of Philando Castile in Minnesota and Alton Sterling in Louisiana. in Dallas is beyond anything we've seen before". Journalist Sally Sara has covered the Black Lives Matter movement extensively and says "the situation. Rallies were being held in Dallas and several US cities over the most recent fatal police shootings of black men in Minnesota and Louisiana. President Obama condemns 'calculated, despicable attack' He is the first DART officer killed in the line of duty.Ī map showing the progress of the Black Lives Matter protest in downtown Dallas. One of the officers killed was a 43-year-old officer for the Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) named Brent Thompson. Some of the officers targeted were traffic police and were not wearing Kevlar body armour as they wanted to avoid presenting an aggressive posture at what was supposed to be a peaceful protest. "So we're leaving every motive on the table of how this happened and why it happened, but we're waiting for the suspects to break and let us know what they're doing." "So there had to be some speculation from us that there is some knowledge of the route, where you'd be, because how would you know to post up there? "Working together with rifles, triangulated at elevated positions in different points in the downtown area where the march ended up going," he said. ![]() 'We're waiting for the suspects to break'Ĭhief Brown said the assumption was all the suspects were working together. Two more suspects were stopped after driving away in a Mercedes with camouflage bags. One woman was taken into custody after being seen near a multi-storey car park where police were engaged in the stand-off. Three other suspects were taken into custody. has told our negotiators that the end is coming, and he's going to hurt and kill more of us, meaning law enforcement, and that there are bombs all over the place in this garage and in downtown," Chief Brown said.īut police later confirmed no explosives were found in the area after conducting primary and secondary sweeps. The suspect, who had engaged in a shoot-out for 45 minutes with police, had said there were bombs around the city. One suspect was killed in a showdown with police, Chief Brown confirmed, while the other suspects in custody - including one black woman - were "not being real cooperative." Loading. Dallas police department chief David Brown said two gunmen shot at "police officers from elevated positions during the protest", sparking an intense manhunt.
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