There has been another shootout in the US, in the city of Dallas, Texas. This time the targets are not civilians but police officers.
People had gathered at the Belo Garden Park to protest against the recent shootings by policemen in various US states. At around 8:45pm local time gunshots were heard from the protest ground. Dallas police Chief David O Brown said that the snipers appear to have taken aim from a vantage point at an elevation.
As soon as the gunshots were heard people ran a skelter while policemen took cover behind parked vehicles even while aimed their guns towards the shooters. Four of the officers were shot dead; three are in critical condition while two were undergoing surgery till the last reports came in.
Surprisingly none of the shooters have been apprehended but it was expressed that officers managed to corner at least one suspect with whom negotiations are on.
Meanwhile, extensive search is on in central Dallas areas and there is heavy surveillance by personnel and helicopters. Hotels, motels, restaurants, shops and offices are been combed.
The Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott has ended all possible help to the city of Dallas.
It is ironic that the shootings took place at a protest against similar shootings which shook parts of the US in recent weeks.
Police officers held down music vendor Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge on Tuesday who was later shot dead. The police were simply responding to a 911 call about a man with a gun. On Wednesday Philando Castile was shot by an officer in Minnesota while he was stopped for a broken tail light. His girlfriend and child were with him in the car and he had informed the police office that he was carrying a licenced weapon and was reaching in to his pocket for his wallet. These shootings by police officers were captured on mobile cameras and the footage was widely circulated on the net which created unrest among citizens against mindless shooting by the police. The two shooting deaths of black men in two days have once again sparked protests about racial inequities in the US.
President Obama began his remarks by offering his condolences to the families of the victims, Alton Sterling and Philando Castile. He made a public statement while in Warsaw, speaking openly about the shootings for the first time. He cited a series of statistics showing African-Americans and Latinos are more likely than whites to be questioned by police and incarcerated. The president also said “All of us as Americans should be troubled by these shootings because these are not isolated incidents; they’re symptomatic of a broader set of racial disparities that exist in our criminal justice system.”
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8 July, 2016
Team Rapid