Four cops dead, at least 7 more wounded by snipers at Dallas protest

[Bridget_Burke]

@Slash1972

How do you fight tyranny without killing the agents of said tyranny?

A Dallas Metro cop is an “Agent of Tyranny”?

[Ale]

@Martin_Hyde

I do think the press in general is being almost criminally negligent in how they report police killings.

Take for example this Quartz article link “More black people were killed by US police in 2015 than were lynched in the worst year of Jim Crow.”

This intrinsically associates police killings with lynchings. It also presents the data in a very disingenuous way.

For one, it notes that we have more police killings of blacks than lynchings during any year of Jim Crow. But these aren’t “like numbers.” Exactly zero lynchings are justifiable, legally or morally. However the evidence suggests that at least a good majority, and probably a very high percentage, of police killings are legally justifiable shootings of a person trying to hurt a police officer or another person.

For two, it ignores the fact that police were killing people during the Jim Crow era as well. But it doesn’t even explore those numbers. So then it goes on to make the fantastic claim that “blacks are less safe today” than they were during Jim Crow. Except, we don’t actually know that that was true. Blacks died from police shootings and lynchings during Jim Crow. They also died from regular homicides. We do know that lynchings don’t really happen anymore. We also know that the homicide rate has gone down over the last twenty years. So a blanket statement that blacks are no more safe today than during Jim Crow cannot be determined from the data presented.

But it’s extremely disingenuous to lump “all” police shootings in, morally, with Jim Crow era lynchings.

As you pointed out that comparison is absurd, the problem is that, as Voltaire said “Those that can convince you of absurdities can make you commit atrocities”

[Slash1972]

@Bridget_Burke

A Dallas Metro cop is an “Agent of Tyranny”?

Perhaps to the shooters, they were. Only they can say. Perhaps they thought the Dallas Metro cop was the local representative of the tyranny of a racist law enforcement establishment across the country, and thereby took up arms to fight against said tyranny?

[Duke_of_Rat]

@Kimstu

I question whether this incident really counts as “things getting out of hand”. I would call it “things getting out of hand” if, say, a protestor brought a gun to a peaceful protest not intending to use it, and a snappish altercation with a cop then escalated into tragedy. That’s the sort of hot-weather Do the Right Thing-type scenario that “things getting out of hand” implies, IMHO.

The Dallas shootings, on the contrary, appear to have been deliberately and carefully planned to take advantage of a peaceful protest as an opportunity for targeting cops who weren’t actually harming anybody. That’s premeditated murder, not “things getting out of hand”.

Ironically, there is video of one of the protesters openly carrying an assault rifle and turning it over to the police when the shooting started. He didn’t chamber a round and join in.

[Snowboarder_Bo]

@Morgenstern

What possible scenario justifies ambushing cops protecting peaceful demonstrators? I’m against lynch mobs, but the shooter saying he wanted to kill white cops pretty much seals it for me. No matter how you spin that, it was intentional homicide, motivated by hate. If you don’t see killing cops as unacceptable, you’re sick in the head.

re: the bolded part: You meant to write “but the Dallas police chief saying the shooter said he wanted to kill white cops pretty much seals it for me”, right? :dubious:

[Sailboat]

Forgive the hijack, but take a moment to contrast these two posts:

@russian_heel

Sorry, but what legitimate grievance might someone have at a cop to shoot at them like a coward sniper?

@GIGObuster

Chief: Dallas Shooting Suspect Killed When Police Robot Detonated Bomb - TPM – Talking Points Memo

In an extraordinary move, police in Dallas used a bomb and a robot to kill a suspect in the deadly Dallas shooting early Friday morning.

Faced with a suspect holed up at El Centro College in Dallas and several officers already dead, law enforcement turned to the unusual method of detonating a bomb.

Dallas Police Chief David Brown told reporters Friday morning that after hours-long negotiations broke down and officers exchanged gunfire with the suspect, police weren’t left with many options to disarm the shooter.

"We saw no other option but to use our bomb robot and place a device on its extension for it to detonate where the suspect was.

I am NOT defending the shooter(s), but wanted to note the police used a bomb robot to avoid being shot themselves.

Accusations of cowardice just seem weird to me; nobody wants/plans to get shot. Militaries for thousands of years have valued ambush and surprise attacks. Even now we use drones and standoff missiles and body armor and flanking maneuvers and everything we can think of to avoid being shot.

There’s nothing particularly admirable desirable or about being vulnerable to flying metal – everybody is.

[XT]

@BobLibDem

I think these are fair points. During Jim Crow, blacks had to fear the lynch mobs and a large proportion of the police. Now the lynch mobs are gone and there is more oversight of police. Certainly the police have a long way to go and the onset of video cameras everywhere has a lot to do with it. But I agree with the premise that blacks are not less safe today, it’s just that the police killings of years past just went uncounted in these studies.

I agree (shocking, I know). The article linked to is completely disingenuous, and has only fanned the flames already present in an us verse them mindset on both sides. Today, every police shooting is pretty much put under a microscope and broadcast not only across the country but across the world. During Jim Crow? I’m not even confident that every lynching was actually documented, let alone ever police shooting of a black (or even a white or hispanic or whatever), let alone that every murder was documented…especially white on black murders done out in some deserted place. It’s ridiculous to assert that black people today are no more safe from white on black violence than they were during Jim Crow, and the authors of that piece of trash are either ignorant fuck nuts or disingenuous asswipes…or, probably, a bit of both.

As to the OP, I’ll just say that according to CNN, it’s 5 officers dead, 7 more injured including 2 civilian protesters. This isn’t going to do anything but make matters worse, though I guess that’s what the shooter(s) wanted, since I guess during negotiations the guy they cornered said he wanted to kill white people, especially white cops:

The suspect told police negotiators that he was upset about recent police shootings, that he wanted to kill white people – especially white officers – and that he acted alone, the city’s police chief told reporters Friday.

[andros]

And in Corcoran, Charlie Manson has himself a nice fat 81-year-old erection.

[Declan]

@monstro

I’d like for folks to not assume that the snipers were BLM protestors. Just like people caution for conclusions to be drawn until after all the facts come in for shootings inflicted by the police, the same rule needs to be applied here.

So what are these guys, Black Panthers or a domestic isis cell. Really, who benefits here if someone took advantage of an ongoing protest, killing multiple LEO’s, instead of any other event that may have taken place the DFW area, that would generate a similar police presence.

Declan

[Smapti]

It appears to have been one person, acting alone, who was mad about BLM and wanted to kill white cops. The early reports of multiple shooters would appear to have been errors made in the fog of war.

[JSexton]

@Richard_Parker

“The number of police officers killed in shootings more than doubled during the first three months of 2016.”

Wow, what a national trend. What are the absolute numbers? It wasn’t something silly like going from 8 to 16, right? Because that would be awfully misleading.

According to this, the number of officers killed by gunfire in the first three months in 2016 was in fact 15. I don’t know exactly what they are claiming it doubled from. It only shows 6 deaths for officers in the first 3 months of 2015, strangely, all in March.

If that’s the comparison, it seems a little cherry picked. Looking at all gun deaths for officers in 2015 and 2016, we have 39 and 21 respectively, so since we’re about halfway through the year, we are more or less on track for a similar overall annual total. And that’s way down from 47 in 2014.

[carnivorousplant]

@Smapti

It appears to have been one person, acting alone,

What led you to that conclusion?

[Smapti]

@carnivorousplant

What led you to that conclusion?

That’s what’s being reported, anyway;

The dead gunman was Micah Xavier Johnson, 25, of Mesquite, Texas, law enforcement sources familiar with the investigation told CNN.

The suspect told police negotiators that he was upset about recent police shootings, that he wanted to kill white people – especially white officers – and that he acted alone, the city’s police chief told reporters Friday.

[xenophon41]

From the very same story:

Brown said an investigation into the ambush continues. He would not say how authorities believe others in custody are connected to the shooting.
Previously, authorities had said three people were in custody, and that multiple shooters were involved in the attack.
“I’m not going to be satisfied until we’ve turned over every stone. We’ve got some level that this one suspect did do some of the shooting. But we’re not satisfied that we’ve exhausted every lead,” he said.

[carnivorousplant]

@Smapti

That’s what’s being reported, anyway;

Thanks.

I thought that the guy in the garage was a different person than the one(s) shooting at the protest.

[sleestak]

@Slash1972

How do you fight tyranny without killing the agents of said tyranny?

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral; begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.

and

The nonviolent approach does not immediately change the heart of the oppressor. It first does something to the hearts and souls of those committed to it. It gives them new self-respect; it calls up resources of strength and courage they did not know they had.

Sez Martin Luther King Jr.

Slee

[GIGObuster]

It was mentioned before but it seems that is almost a rule. Many times people and authorities when the incident takes place mistakenly think that more than one people is involved when it turns out that only one is.

And now I think that Dallas just got the seeds planted for a new false conspiracy theory franchise.

[Morgenstern]

…“officials exchanged gunfire with the suspect and “saw no other option” but to kill him by detonating a bomb, Brown said.”…*

That from the police chief, the following from the Mayor.

Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings praised the team who took down the suspect.*
“The good news: He’s gone off the face of the Earth,” Rawlings told MSNBC.*

I guess the bomb was a pretty big one.

[Lightray]

So, just got back from the dentist’s office. While I was there, we heard about a police officer shot just a few miles away (in Ballwin & Manchester, MO). The hygienist was flipping through tv channels trying to see what was being reported on it, but we had to go through several because we couldn’t tell if they were talking about the local (smaller) story, or the Dallas (bigger) story.

[Kimstu]

Ballwin MO officer shot during traffic stop. Apparently non-fatally, thank goodness.