SNIPERS OPEN FIRE ON COPS
Police officers killed at Dallas demo
• Three police officers are dead of 10 who were shot by two snipers during a Dallas demonstration over two recent fatal police shootings of black men, city police Chief David Brown said late Thursday.
Two of the officers were in surgery, and three were in critical condition in hospital after being shot from an elevated position, Brown said.
The gunfire broke out around 8:45 p.m. Thursday. Live TV video showed protesters marching along a street in downtown, about half a mile from city hall, when the shots erupted and the crowd scattered.
A tweet from the Dallas Area Rapid Transit said four DART officers were shot, one of whom died.
While suspects had been arrested as of midnight, scores of police and security officers were on hand. Police and others hunched behind cars outside a parking garage. Officers with guns drawn were running near and into the parking garage as police searched for the shooters.
TV cameras showed the search for the gunman stretched throughout downtown, an area of hotels, restaurants, businesses and residential apartments. The scene was chaotic, with helicopters hovering overhead and officers with automatic rifles on the street corners.
An Associated Press reporter at the scene saw officers entering an Omni hotel building on the southwest side of downtown. TV cameras also showed officers carrying shields going into a bank building.
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.”
Peete said she saw a woman trip and nearly get trampled as people ran to get to safety.
“Everyone just started running,” Devante Odom, 21, told The Dallas Morning News. “We lost touch with two of our friends just trying to get out of there.”
Carlos Harris, who lives downtown told the newspaper that the shooters “were strategic. It was tap tap pause. Tap tap pause.”
On Wednesday, a Minnesota officer fatally shot Philando Castile while he was in a car with a woman and a child in a St. Paul suburb. The aftermath of the shooting was purportedly livestreamed in a widely shared Facebook video.
A day earlier, Alton Sterling was shot in Louisiana after being pinned to the pavement by two white officers. That, too, was captured on a cellphone video.
The gunshots in Dallas came amid protests nationwide over the recent police shootings.
In midtown Manhattan, protesters first gathered in Union Square Park where they chanted “The people united, never be divided!” and “What do we want? Justice. When do we want it? Now!”
A group of protesters then left the park and began marching up Fifth Avenue blocking traffic during the height of rush hour as police scrambled to keep up. Another group headed through Herald Square and Times Square.