UPDATE: This article has been updated to reflect the announcement that there was a single shooter, Micah Xavier Johnson, not two shooters as initially suspected.
In what is being called the deadliest day for U.S. law enforcement since 9/11, five police officers were killed in a mass shooting in Dallas.
The shooting, carried out by Micah Xavier Johnson, 25, during a protest against the police killings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, also left six additional police officers and one civilian wounded.
According to NBC News, Johnson was a special education aide. Before that, he served for six years in the Army Reserves. A coworker reached by phone said that he could not believe Johnson was the Dallas shooter.
“He's not that kind of person,” the man said. “He's not violent. That can't be him.”
Speaking from Poland, where he is attending a NATO summit, President Obama called the shooting “a vicious, calculated, and despicable attack.” This was President Obama’s second statement on gun violence in less than 24 hours.
“All Americans should be deeply troubled,” he said July 7, referring to the police shootings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile. In his statement, he was careful not to demean police officers as a whole.
“To admit we’ve got a serious problem in no way contradicts our respect and appreciation for the vast majority of police officers who put their lives on the line to protect us every single day,” he said. It was a thread that Obama had to take back up, unfortunately, in his statement on the Dallas shooting.
"There is no possible justification for these kinds of attacks or any violence against law enforcement," he said.
To make the attack in Dallas even more tragic, if that were possible, is the fact that Dallas’ police department seemed to be on friendly terms with the protestors. The department live-tweeted the demonstration, and even posted pictures of officers posing with protestors.
Demonstration in #Dallas @ Belo Garden Park pic.twitter.com/IUx5IaERSB
— Dallas Police Depart (@DallasPD) July 8, 2016
.@DPDAnderson with Senator Royce West @ demonstration @ Belo Garden Park pic.twitter.com/9wzMAxfsiM
— Dallas Police Depart (@DallasPD) July 8, 2016
Dallas mayor Mike Rawlings called the shooting “heartbreaking,” and made a plea for unity and healing.
“We as a city, we as a country, must come together and lock arms and heal the wounds we all feel,” he said.
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