Terror, gunfire on the streets of Dallas
Videos show scenes of murder, chaos, cowering witnesses
The mayhem of booming gunfire and terrified people scurrying for safety in the heart of Dallas seemed to last forever.
Thursday night’s sniper attack began at twilight as people of all races and ages rallied peacefully over two fatal police shootings of black men.
In a matter of seconds, civilians and police officers were cowering behind cars and pinning themselves against buildings as blasts of high-power gunfire rang out.
“I saw cops getting shot, right there in plain sight,” Cortney Washington said. “While we was running, they just kept shooting. We didn’t know where it was coming from.”
The rapid fire was deafening as shots echoed off office buildings in the downtown area of the city, sadly famous for being the site of President John F Kennedy’s assassination in 1963.
“Somebody is really armed to the teeth,” a man is heard saying amid the loud staccato of Thursday’s gunfire in one amateur video posted online.
Another horrific video posted online shows a gunman dart out from behind a pillar, sneak up behind a police officer and shoot him in the back. The cop falls to the ground.
Witness Patrick Cooper filmed from the ground floor of El Centro College as a gunman with what he described as a long gun ran in and upstairs. Cooper took refuge in a bathroom. Again, the boom of gunshots is terrifyingly loud.
“I was petrified. I didn’t know what to do,” Cooper said. “The gunshots that were all around me, and I’m thinking they’re firecrackers or something else. When I come outside to look, I see a suspect, somebody just running, running towards where I’m at and going upstairs...it was the shooter.”
“There was a pop-pop-poppop,” at least 30 times, Clarissa Pyles, 23 told the Houston Chronicle. “I didn’t know what was going on. I just started running for my life,” she said.