Last night’s shootings in Dallas is just another tragic event marker in a bloody timeline of the past few years. I mean, honestly, fuck 2016. What is the fucking matter with people today? We can’t go four days without someone getting shot in the face. We go from two unrelated police involved shootings one day to an organized attack on police officers the next. It’s like a never-ending narrative of violence.
After the shooting death of both Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, protesters around the country peacefully marched in their honor. One of these cities included Dallas, where the protest march was so non-violent, police and protesters were posing together and mingling.
Demonstration in #Dallas @ Belo Garden Park pic.twitter.com/IUx5IaERSB
— Dallas Police Dept (@DallasPD) July 8, 2016
Then the active shooters showed up. Despite initial reports, the shooters were not members of the protest but, instead, were snipers strictly targeting cops. However, since the cops were all standing in front of protesters, people got caught in their crosshairs. People such as Shetamia Taylor and her four sons.
Via Mirror:
“Mum-of-four Shetamia Taylor bravely threw herself over her two sons as bullets flew through the air as they tried to leave the anti-violence protest in Dallas. She was hit in the leg leaving one of her sons ‘covered in her blood’. The sister of the 37-year-old, who is thought to be a medical worker from Garland, described the terrifying moment the shooting started at the Black Lives Matters protest on Thursday night with her sons.
Theresa Williams said: “As the rally was ending and they turned to leave, they were one of the first crowds to leave, they heard the first gunshot. After that first gunshot she heard the second gunshot and after that it was just a lot of gunshots. She said they just came so fast and they wouldn’t stop. They all began to run, scatter and she said as she started to run she caught a bullet in the back of her right leg. She immediately jumped on top of one of her boys, the 15-year-old, she jumped on top to cover him on the ground as she pushed him in between two cars and the kerb. Her other three boys scattered and ran in opposite directions. So she lost three of her boys, didn’t know where they were. She lay there, she said it was about five minutes before cops even got to her and pulled her from the area where she was because the shots were coming so fast.”
Speaking to Fox 4 news about 15-year-old Andrew, she added: “When we got [to the hospital], he was covered in his mom’s blood, scared.
“All he could do was run up to my sister and myself and hug our necks.”
Another sister, Sherie Williams, said Shetamia had taken her sons to the rally to teach them about peaceful protests.”
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Just a mother trying to teach her kids the importance of non-violence. Totally deserves to be shot by a stray bullet. Besides, isn’t the best way to voice your displeasure with police violence to kill five of them and shoot a few civilians while you’re at it? Definitely goes a long way towards ending the cycle of violence.
While Taylor was one of the first civilians to be injured, she was also one of the only. Mostly due to police officers putting themselves between the protestors and the shooter.
“Meanwhile another man, Lynn Mays, said his life had been saved by a brave officer who pushed him out of the way of bullets.
He told Dallas News: “All of a sudden we started hearing gunshots just out of nowhere.
“At first we couldn’t identify it because we weren’t expecting it and then we started hearing more rapid fire and a police officer pushed me out of the way because it was coming in our direction.
“So when the officer pushed me out the way next thing you know we heard ‘officer down’ so when we hear ‘officer down’ more undercover officers as well as uniformed police officers start running around the corner, they froze and this shootout began.””
And, going back to my initial statement, fuck 2016. Something’s gotta give eventually. I’m fairly sick and tired of this narrative of violence. And, personally, I think the narrative here is part of the problem. Every time something like this happens, people try and twist it into their own personal political stories and ideologies, regardless of facts or evidence. At the root of it all, that’s the problem. There are too many talking heads trying to tell us what happened and why this is bad/why certain people should feel guilty and certain people should feel wronged. Leave it alone. Don’t use a person’s memory to further your own aspirations. Look at Dallas. Where do cops putting themselves in the line of fire or protesters openly and non-violently discussing their concerns with police fall into your narrative?