Three police officers in Dallas were killed and seven others were wounded on Thursday night, Dallas Police Chief David Brown said in a statement.
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The Dallas Mayor said a suspect in standoff with police died after officers used explosives to ‘blast him out’.
Police Chief David Brown blamed “snipers” and said three suspects were in custody while a fourth had exchanged gunfire with authorities in a parking garage downtown and told negotiators he meant to hurt more law enforcement officials.
Gunfire broke out at around 20:45 local time on Thursday (01:45 GMT Friday) as demonstrators marched through the city.
DART said in a statement Mr Thompson was the first officer killed in the line of duty since the agency formed a police department in 1989. “We still don’t have a complete comfort level that we have all the suspects”, Brown said. It shows that protesters were marching along a street in down town, about half a mile from City Hall, suddenly shots erupts and the crowd scatters, seeking cover.
At least four police officers are dead in Texas after a shooting during a protest against police shootings in Minnesota and Louisiana, KDFW TV in Dallas reported.
Police located two of those suspects after seeing them throw a large camouflage bag into a Mercedes and speed off.
Shooters killed five officers at a protest over police violence in downtown Dallas, sending screaming crowds scrambling for shelter and spurring an investigation into who was behind the ambush.
Thursday’s shootings occurred in area of hotels, restaurants, businesses and some residential apartments only a few blocks from Dealey Plaza, the landmark made famous by the Kennedy assassination. Federal authorities also halted commercial air traffic for the area as police helicopters hovered over the scene. Police reportedly apprehended multiple other suspects on a Dallas highway after a auto chase. There’s no conversation. If there is a conversation, it’s a one-way conversation where the African-American male is being yelled at, pretty much, ‘Sit down and be quiet or you’re going to get shot, ‘ ” Smith said. A fourth died after exchanging gunfire with police in the parking garage of El Centro College in downtown Dallas.
“We lost touch with two of our friends just trying to get out of there”.
The following day another video – which was live streamed on Facebook – claimed to show the aftermath of police shooting Philando Castile in his auto in Minnesota.
Abbott said in a release early Friday morning that he would be heading directly to Dallas.
A person of interest whose picture was circulated on social media first by Dallas Police has turned himself in.
Mike Rawlings, the mayor of Dallas, said that the shootings marked a “heartbreaking moment for the city”. Six other officers were wounded.
Brittany Peete, a demonstrator, said she didn’t hear the gunshots, but she “saw people rushing back toward me saying there was an active shooter”.
The Officer Down Memorial website says 53 U.S. officers have died in the line of duty in 2016, 21 of them as a result of gunfire.
UPDATE 9:17 a.m.: Dallas Area Rapid Transit Police Chief James Spiller says an officer who was fatally shot during a downtown Dallas protest was a newlywed whose bride also works for the police force.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott said he had directed the head of the state’s Department of Public Safety to offer “whatever assistance the City of Dallas needs at this time”. It was one of the worst mass shootings of police in US history. “I believe I speak for every American when I say we are horrified”.
– President Barack Obama, who is in Warsaw, Poland, said his team is keeping him updated.
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Twelve officers were shot by at least two snipers, who took up “elevated positions” along the protest route.
