The deaths of five police officers at the hands of a black man who said he wanted to kill "white people” on a hot Thursday night in Dallas night has cast an undeniable pall across the country, exacerbating and accelerating an existing conversation about race and police powers. The president himself has counseled calm and called for police departments to consider their relationships with communities of color.
Across Dallas, ordinary people stop police officers to offer condolences and thank them for their services, while sporadic Black Lives Matter protests take place and investigators continue to probe what prompted Micah Johnson to take up arms against his fellow Americans. Churches have been packed with worshipers trying to make sense of the incident and the world in which they live.
Some patrol officers grouse that Obama’s visit — he’s speaking along with former president George W. Bush at a memorial service — will further tax their exhausted department. A presidential visit on a normal day to a settled city requires a massive police presence. Tuesday is no ordinary day, and Dallas is far from settled.
The city’s core remains off-limits to all but investigators, and many businesses have stayed shut rather than deal with the closures. Hotels report cancellations from nervous guests, and restaurants have been closing early. Other restaurants are holding fundraisers for the families of the fallen officers, and blue ribbons flutter on parking meters near the shooting scene.
At police headquarters on Monday morning, a reporter asked Chief David Brown how he was holding up. The city was sponsoring a candlelight memorial vigil for fallen officers on Monday night and funerals begin Wednesday for the fallen officers.
“To be quite honest, I’m running on fumes,” Brown said during an at-times emotional press conference. “I don’t know how I’m going to make it through the rest of the week.”
Brown has provided a calm, steady voice for his city. A third-generation Dallas resident, Brown quit college as a young man to join the force and patrol his neighborhood. He said Black Lives Matter protesters have valid concerns about police treatment across the country and called for those in Dallas to join the police department and help their communities from within.
The comments came as the chief, clearly angry, demanded that politicians stop arguing about minor issues and focus on the values Americans share.
It’s not going to be easy. On CBS' Face the Nation Sunday, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani called the Black Lives Matter movement "inherently racist.”
"They sing rap songs about killing police officers and they talk about killing police officers and they yell it out at their rallies and the police officers hear it," Giuliani said.
Dallas, perhaps more than any other major American city, has made significant strides to reduce police-related violence, and Brown on Monday noted the department received only 14 complaints about use-of-force last year, compared with an average of 200 when he arrived six years ago. Brown knows the stakes personally: Shortly after being named chief, his own son was shot and killed by an officer after fatally shooting another officer.
Brown, who joined the department after seeing the crack epidemic ravaging his city, said it’s long past time that politicians address the underlying issues they increasingly ask police officers to deal with: Loose dogs. Mental health crisis. Racial conflicts. The easy availability of powerful firearms.
“We are asking cops to do too much in the country,” Brown said, his anger and frustration visible. “You’re just asking us to do too much. Every societal failure, we put it off on cops. That’s too much to ask. Policing was never meant to solve all those problems. I just ask that other parts of our democracy, along with the free press, to help us, to help us and not put that burden all on law enforcement to resolve.”
Source : usatoday
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