Some police officer on TV was just saying how shocked they all are that this has happened.

[Maraya1969]

(EDIT) It is true, as people have said below, that we do not know if the shooter is black, (although I did not say that) or why he shoot. I have assumed it is someone retaliating for all of the police shootings of black men, especially with that picture of Alton Sterling and the video of Philando Castile's girlfriend and him dead in the car. The fact that all the shots were aimed at the police just led me here and I still believe this is the case.

2nd EDIT: Reported: Brown (police) said the suspect told negotiators "the end was coming," that he's "going to hurt and kill more of us" (meaning law enforcement), and that there were bombs planted all over the garage and downtown.)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Personally I am surprised that this is the first time it has happened. You cannot beat a group of people down over and over and not expect them to ever retaliate.
I think these type of things are going to continue to happen as long as white cops kill black men with a serious lack of restraint.

And though it remains to be seen, I think that this tactic might be the only one that may work. How many hundreds of peaceful protests have their been? How much good has it done?

I think the police force first needs to teach all their personnel about the systemic, surreptitious racism toward the black community that has been going on for years and has rendered this country so ill. I did not know how a ghetto was really formed until this year when I watched a video about how black people were refused US backed mortgages that were given to white people after WW2. Owning a house and creating equity over the years is the main way people have acquired any wealth and it was refused to black people. All members of our police force should know these things and how they effect other things like education if they are going to work with the public. Because THIS is our public.

Black people in this country have been set up to fail by the most ignorant among us, the racists. They need to be recognized and called out.


And I think every police force AND school needs to teach real statistics. The kind of statistics that allows you to find out why the crime rate of the black community is so high. The kind that takes away your justification for treating any person differently than another.

I don't feel very hopeful though. Maybe because I just saw this tweet that is going around that is blaming President Obama for tonight. smh

[struggle4progress]

1. So far we don'y know who did this -- or why

[arely staircase]

2. So the shooters are black? nt

[gwheezie]

3. While most of what you said is true

So far, no one knows who did this, what their ethnic background is or the motive.

[Bucky]

4. The shooters weren't doing this to protect black people from the cops

They were doing it to provoke more violence. The police they shot were protecting the protesters. They were keeping order and doing their jobs right.

[Maraya1969]

9. The news said he was like a sniper. The police were shot at. Not the black people protesting.

[JustAnotherGen]

5. That what happened?

[Petrushka]

8. The following link provides some answers.

http://www.wfaa.com/news/local/dallas-county/breaking-shots-fired-and-officers-down-at-downtown-dallas-protest/266881573

[Skittles]

6. you have no idea what their motives were

[Maraya1969]

7. Their shots were all aimed at police. I don't think it was out of love.

[Rex]

10. Yes obviously their intent was to kill LEO, but their motive is still unclear.

The two things are not identical. Why they wanted to shoot the cops, is at the present time unclear. You can speculate all you want to.

[Maraya1969]

11. Here is what one of them said to a negotiator.

Brown said the suspect told negotiators "the end was coming," that he's "going to hurt and kill more of us" (meaning law enforcement), and that there were bombs planted all over the garage and downtown."


Now you can believe that they want to "hurt" and "kill" the police because they don't like their uniforms. But I think it's because of police brutality

[Rex]

12. Maybe, but 'why' is what I want to know. Why do all this?

Because you hate cops? Then why plant bombs all over the city and hurt innocent people? Sounds like some para-military group trying to start wholesale panic in the streets.

[Skittles]

24. how do you know he's not just a severe case of psychosis

or PTSD?

[Maraya1969]

25. I guess I don't. It is just that I have been expecting somehting like this to happen for a few

years now. It's kind of like when the police inform a personal that a close relative has been murdered and they immediately say the name of their spouse. They have watched the spouse and listened to their relative and thought this might happen formed the opinion that their relative was in danger because of their spouse....and they were just told that they were right.

That is just what I thought. And from what has been said so far it seems to be true.

Go to Youtube and watch the police murders of black men (and children and women). Look at all of them and you'll see a motive for a black person to want to kill white police.

I get the feeling that the people who are not drawn to this conclusion do not understand the pervasive racism and the systemic ways this country has been set up to block their progress.

[Skittles]

26. you're very close to condoning violence

over and out - for good

[JonathanRackham]

13. Never thought Dallas would be first.

With the poverty and crime rate in Chicago I always suspected Chicago would be first. Harlem or upper Manhatten would be second. Poverty is slow genocide. North Korea and Russia have used it on their people.

[uponit7771]

15. Yeap, Someone on MJ was saying the DPD is pretty progressive outfit with community interaction

... it sounds like paramilitary stupids

[KingCharlemagne]

17. And don't forget the police torture center at Homan Square. im kind of

Surprised there hasnt been some serious payback in Chicago yet.

[Maraya1969]

20. I am wondering if it matters much. I wonder how the racist cops in the places you mention are

feeling today? I wonder how easy it is going to be for cops to intimidate and abuse black people anywhere in the country today?

They might think twice. No one knows how many more snipers are eager to do what the one did last night. If I were a cop I would really not want to be the last one to kill an innocent black man before another sniper kills a bunch of my buddies.

[melman]

22. So it's a good thing?

That's basically what you're saying.

[Maraya1969]

27. No. I am saying that it was bound to happen. We need to teach about the systemic

racism in this country because there are just too many people who cannot see it.

[avebury]

14. Well said.

"Personally I am surprised that this is the first time it has happened. You cannot beat a group of people down over and over and not expect them to ever retaliate. I think these type of things are going to continue to happen as long as white cops kill black men with a serious lack of restraint."


I totally agree with you.

[Maraya1969]

18. Thank you. I am kind of amazed at the number of people who were up in arms about it last night

Saying that no one knew why this happened? I actually thought it was blatantly obvious. And the fact that people don't see this as a obvious result of the way black men have been treated by the police since forever has me thinking that they do not realize how bad it is out there.

[socialist_n_TN]

16. If you're talking about random killings of cops as the .................

tactic being the only one that might work, I disagree. Trotsky and Lenin said it best about this tactic over a century ago when they were talking about and to the Social Revolutionaries and other anarchists of their day. The oppression is systemic and won't be stopped by random acts of assassination and terror because the system will just plug in another face and continue the oppression. It will take an organized working class hitting the system where it hurts, i.e., the profit margin, to do anything about the system.

This is not to denigrate the frustration of people who want to take some sort of action against the oppression. The feelings are actually understandable to me, even when it goes as far as Dallas did. But it's tactically and strategically counterproductive to getting real change. Killing a few oppressors won't change the system that oppresses.

[Maraya1969]

19. How do you think racists cops feel about abusing black people on the job today ?

I don't know but I think they would be feeling fear instead of what they seemed to have been feeling, which is omnipotent since most of them can kill a black man and have no repercussions at all.

I understand your point but in this country with the vast wealth disparity I don't see an organized working class being able to affect anything right now. Maybe the continued fight for more money going to the working class will help.

But they also did not have the types of bombs and weapons that we have now back then. idk

[socialist_n_TN]

23. Well they did have weapons that were akin to what we have today............

But I definitely agree that there is no organized working class fightback against this today. But an organized working class would not be just about economics. It would need to fight against ALL forms of oppression and most especially, killer cops.

As to racist cops feeling fear today instead of omnipotence, I don't think that's accurate. Maybe if the shooter had made the (relatively) short drive to Baton Rouge and killed the two cops that killed Alton Sterling in a SPECIFIC act of revenge against a couple of proven killer cops, THEN they might have been a little fearful. But random acts like this, no matter how understandable from an anger motivation, doesn't even make the individual actors fearful. What I imagine they are feeling today is even MORE anger.

[Marthe48]

21. Not the answer

The policemen who died in Dallas were not the ones who pulled the trigger in LA and MN, or other places. The shooting in Dallas is the killing of more innocents. I feel that the murder of black men by white cops is partly bad training, partly bad choices of personal, and partly white men, who in killing black men, are 'killing' President Obama. I don't want to use the word surrogate--MSM discovered the word recently and are already overusing it in politics.

I hate waking up to news of more death, whether it is the shooting deaths of unarmed citizens, or police, or people getting blown up in other countries. I post my sorrow on Facebook. What makes me feel worse is that people I am friends with on Facebook, who are otherwise decent people, say NOTHING about the black victims, but post memorials and poems and prayers if a cop gets killed. The victims who die at the hands of violence all deserve acknowledgement. And people who weight the death of a cop heavier than the death of a citizen don't understand that with each death, we are losing more than a citizen. We are losing the lifeblood of America.