Pain on the streets of Dallas
EMOTIONS HIGH: Residents attempt to make sense of future of city, nation
DALLAS — Throughout Friday and Saturday, the west end of downtown, normally business by day and revelry by night, home of the Mavericks and Stars, was a solemn place. Office towers empty and quiet. No rush at rush hour. Badges everywhere. Prayers offered, hands clutched.
Then the mood was shattered, as police shooed reporters and bystanders away from a makeshift memorial in front of headquarters and took cover behind cars and trees. They drew weapons, and a police sharpshooter set up on the roof of a nearby apartment complex.
An anonymous threat against law enforcement and the report of a suspicious person in the headquarters parking garage led to an hourslong search Saturday night and rattled a city on edge.
Police closed South Lamar Street and used a device to blow open a fence at the garage. That triggered false reports of gunshots. About four hours after the threat was reported, police said their search yielded nothing, and they let people begin retrieving their cars from the garage.
It had been two days since an Army veteran shot and killed five police officers and
injured seven others.
It’s been 53 years since another sniper in a nearby perch muffled voices raised in unity, hope and — that time — celebration. Dallas finds itself asking: “Why? Why now? Why here, again?”
This time, the world had a frontrow seat, the videos emerged instantly and the chaos gripped the nation at once. And just as fast, vitriol spilled out across America, collective rage, disgust and blame in a torrent of short Facebook posts and shorter tweets.
A former congressman threatened the president, while Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters were hypocrites for running while expecting Dallas police to protect them.
The New York Post headline proclaimed, “Civil War.”
Suddenly, the 1960s didn’t seem a half century gone. Amplified voices
In the tabloid and social media narrative, there wasn’t the space to probe into the lives and deaths of Alton Sterling, Philando Castile and Dallas officers Brent Thompson, Patrick Zamarripa, Michael Krol, Michael Smith and Lorne Ahrens — or the events that preceded them.
Just space for more sniping. At least, that’s how Chris Bailey saw it. He deleted his social media accounts Friday morning in disgust.
Among the otherwise weary pedestrians slathered in sweat along Main Street, trying to make sense of what just happened to their city and what was becoming of their country, Bailey loped along with purpose, garnering smiles, fist bumps and hugs with his homemade poster: “EVERYBODY LOVE EVERYBODY.”
He’s not religious. He doesn’t share his politics. He wasn’t seeking handouts. The 50-year-old foundation repair salesman and North Texas native just didn’t know what else to do with a free afternoon and a heart of pain. He had tried to help his son understand it all the night before, but he barely understood it himself.
The most he could do was urge Paxton to come home early Friday night.
“Tensions are high,” he warned the 15-year-old.
“I was crying on my way to work this morning,” Bailey said. “I was in a tailspin. So I’m trying to do the opposite of hate. I’ve never done anything like this.”
Shamar Johnson of Houston was on vacation — booked before the shootings — with his fiancée, strolling along the grassy knoll at Dealey Plaza on Saturday morning. He said social media had become a double-edged sword. It has exposed black lives cut short at the hands of police. But Dallas’s new tragedy also might not have happened without social media, he said.
“Before, there were three people with a voice: NBC, ABC and CBS,” said the 40-year-old salesman. “Now you have hundreds of millions. Everyone has a megaphone, and there’s always followers. Somebody says, ‘F the police,’ and doesn’t understand the story because they’re not getting the right information. Then people follow. It can’t be stopped.”
Speaking at a NATO summit in Warsaw on Saturday, President Barack Obama rejected the premise that America is plunging back into the tumult of the 1960s, saying the country isn’t as divided as some suggest. He called for constructive dialogue that doesn’t assume the worst in people.
“There’s unity in recognizing that this is not how we want our communities to operate,” he said. “This is not who we want to be as Americans. And that serves as the basis for us being able to move forward. … We cannot let the actions of a few define us all.”
The unity in Dallas coalesced at police headquarters, where a steady, multicultural stream of mourners and well-wishers heaped love in the form of flowers and handwritten missives onto two police cruisers until they were barely recognizable by Saturday afternoon. A 10-year-old boy in a SWAT costume sauntered up to a state trooper, stood at attention and saluted.
“Thank you for risking your life for us,” another child wrote on a letter plastered on one cruiser’s window. “I do not know what the world would be like if there was no police officer, but I know it would be the worst place ever.” ‘We have no time to move on’
Djuana Franklin dropped a letter on one police car, tears streaming down her face.
“Dallas PD was there for me when I was homeless,” said Franklin, 44. “They were there for me when I was raped. When I was in a domestic violence case, they were there for me.”
Lillie Beck, 72, draped herself in black despite mid-90-degree heat.
“I just came to be down here for a minute, for all the things going on in our country,” she said. “It’s kind of overwhelming. I just wanted to get some relief. It’s such a burden for me. And for others.”
She was watching TV with her new husband and her sister in 1963 when news broke that the president had been shot, just blocks from the makeshift police memorial.
“Even though it was a sunny day, it seemed like everything turned dark.”
On Thursday night, she was at home preparing for a Sunday school class on the Book of Revelation when her city was torn apart again.
“Maybe the Lord’s trying to show us something,” she thought.
The next generation still wonders what. Jacqueline Calhoun was born shortly after the assassination. Her mother named her after the first lady.
“In my day, we had time to heal from tragedies,” she said. “Now, it’s everywhere. We have no time to move on, and anger stays elevated.”
She said her parents never had to tell her what she’s having to tell her grandchildren.
“I was always told to be respectful, no matter what, and you’ll be OK,” she said. “Now I tell my kids to keep to themselves and stay home whenever they can.”
The question, she said, isn’t why this happened in Dallas.
“The question should be, ‘why did this happen in America?’ ”