Five police officers were killed and seven others wounded in Dallas, Texas, by a sniper in one of the worst shooting of law enforcement officials near the end of a protest against killing of two black men this week.
President Brack Obama, now traveling in Poland for a NATO summit, called the attack a “vicious, calculated and despicable attack on law enforcement,” as America
This was his second message of the day following a statement earlier in the day which sought national empathy over killing of two African-Americans in Minnesota and Louisiana, which resulted in protests against police brutality in several cities .
As per reports, an unidentified gunman negotiated with police from inside a parking garage into the early Friday, telling police he was angered over racially charged shootings.
He was killed when police sent a robot in to detonate a bomb he had, police said.
“We’re hurting,” Dallas Police Chief David Brown told a news conference on Friday. “Our profession is hurting. Dallas officers are hurting. We are heartbroken. There are no words to describe the atrocity that occurred to our city. All I know is this must stop, this divisiveness between our police and our citizens.”
Brown said the dead suspect told authorities he was angry about police shootings.
“He said he was upset at white people,” Brown said. “He said he wanted to kill white people, especially white police officers.”
Initial reports said there was more than one sniper, but at the news conference, Brown indicated the dead suspect may have been the sole gunman. Although he told police he was “not affiliated” with anyone else, three others were being held.
Dallas police source estimated to that at least 60 rounds were fired over a “large kill zone.” The source added that the shooting would have required considerable planning.
The attack came in a week when two black men were fatally shot by police officers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and outside Minneapolis. The killings, both now the subject of official investigations, inflamed tensions about race and justice in the United States.
Quinyetta McMillon, who had a child with Alton Sterling, the black man slain by police in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, earlier this week, condemned the Dallas attack in a statement.
“We wholeheartedly reject the reprehensible acts of violence that were perpetrated against members of the Dallas Police Department,” McMillon said. “Regardless of how angry or upset people may be, resorting to this kind of sickening violence should never happen and simply cannot be tolerated.”
A Twitter account describing itself as representing the Black Lives Matter movement sent the message: “Black Lives Matter advocates dignity, justice and freedom. Not murder.”
President Obama expressed his “deepest condolences” to Rawlings on behalf of the American people.
“I believe I speak for every single American when I say that we are horrified over these events and we are united with the people and police department in Dallas,” he said.
