Last Updated | 7:32 p.m.
In the immediate aftermath of the deadly attack on police officers at a protest march in Dallas on Thursday that left at least five officers dead, social networks were flooded with witness accounts of what happened, in video clips and livestreams, photographs and text updates. The Intercept is assembling pieces of that mosaic here, starting with the accounts below, and will add more as we see them. Input from readers is welcome. Please share witness accounts I’ve missed in the comment thread below or on Twitter, @RobertMackey.
A photograph posted on Twitter at 8:12 p.m. local time by the Dallas Police Department showed smiling officers securing the event posing with a protester holding a placard that read, “No Justice, No Peace.”
Demonstration in #Dallas @ Belo Garden Park pic.twitter.com/IUx5IaERSB
— Dallas Police Depart (@DallasPD) July 8, 2016
Four minutes later, the department shared video of protesters chanting, “Enough Is Enough!”
Demonstrators in #Dallas chanting, "Enough is enough." pic.twitter.com/P6Nv28uN28
— Dallas Police Depart (@DallasPD) July 8, 2016
At 8:45 p.m. the department uploaded a clip of marchers chanting in call and response: “What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now.”
#Demonstration in #Dallas pic.twitter.com/YZXXPAOoBn
— Dallas Police Depart (@DallasPD) July 8, 2016
A participant in the protest who identified herself as a 15-year-old girl posted video on Twitter at 8:55 p.m. showing marchers chanting “Hands Up! Don’t Shoot!” just before the attack started.
hands up dont shoot pic.twitter.com/CirNqpOObu
— ? (@bhuwkls) July 8, 2016
Seven minutes later, in tears, she shared a clip of the panic in the crowd as shots rang out.
SOMEONE GOT SHOT I CAMT STOL CEYINTN pic.twitter.com/oZ9wuXqtbP
— ? (@bhuwkls) July 8, 2016
In a live video stream on Facebook, which appeared to start at 8:59 p.m., a witness named Michael Kevin Bautista, who was covering the protest, broadcast a long exchange of fire between police officers and a gunman outside the El Centro College building at the corner of Main Street and North Lamar.
Another clip, posted on Twitter later by a comedian and video blogger who uses the name Goldie Gorilla, appeared to show an officer being gunned down outside the building.
Street level Video of one of the Officers Shot #DallasPoliceShooting #Dallas pic.twitter.com/oDwVeMWN5g
— King Goldie (@GoldieGorilla) July 8, 2016
At 9 p.m. a man and a woman who live a block and a half away from the college both uploaded video shot from their living room window in which a stream of gunfire could be heard.
Holy fuck pic.twitter.com/tB9V4beKav
— Trash Panda (@WhoAteMyPizza) July 8, 2016
I am so scared. pic.twitter.com/jw88QnKGXG
— Allison (@allisongriz) July 8, 2016
Gunshots could also be heard in video recorded inside the college at 9:02 p.m. and uploaded to Facebook three minutes later by a witnesses named Patrick Cooper.
Sidney Johnson, who was covering the protest for Central Track, a local website focused on events in Dallas, recorded video of police officers pinned down by the shooting from a parking garage across the street from the college. Johnson later wrote a moving account of the march and the chaotic aftermath.
More video of the shoot-out, posted on Twitter by ABC News, seems to begin just a few seconds before the Central Track clip ends, and shows officers on Main Street facing the gunman.
UPDATE: Video shows chaotic scene after 2 officers shot during Dallas protest https://t.co/ckA8up78MXhttps://t.co/pA7GDHmnUr
— ABC7 Eyewitness News (@ABC7) July 8, 2016
Another clip, uploaded to Instagram by Sarah Noelle Hendrix, an El Centro culinary student, seems to have been shot from just beside Johnson in the parking garage.
CNN talked to a witness named Ismael Dejesus who had posted video on Facebook that appeared to show the gunman hiding behind the distinctive columns of the college building.
Witness Ismael Dejesus joins @donlemon to share the video he captured of the #Dallas shooting https://t.co/oBmEIv09rk
— CNN (@CNN) July 8, 2016
Perhaps the most arresting images, recorded by a witness named Randy Biart from the nearby Crowne Plaza Hotel, appeared to show the gunman firing a rifle from behind the columns of El Centro College.
This is amateur video of a suspect apparently firing a semi-automatic rifle in #Dallashttps://t.co/wSzB5NljBT
— BBC Breakfast (@BBCBreakfast) July 8, 2016
What appears to be a later section of Biart’s footage was broadcast by a local Fox News station and copied to YouTube by Matthew Keys, a former social media editor for Reuters who was convicted last year of helping members of the hacker group Anonymous. That section of the video includes distressing, graphic images of the gunman shooting a police officer at point-blank range during the firefight.
On Friday morning, at a news conference streamed on Periscope, Dallas Police Chief David Brown said that one gunman was killed by his officers after an hourslong standoff in a parking garage at El Centro College. Brown said the force killed the suspect with a bomb delivered by a robot after negotiations for his surrender broke down.
LIVE on #Periscope https://t.co/QeIgeQ42bu
— Dallas Police Depart (@DallasPD) July 8, 2016
Before he died, according to the police chief, “The suspect said he was upset about Black Lives Matter. He said he was upset about the recent police shootings. The suspect said he was upset at white people. The suspect stated he wanted to kill white people, especially white officers.”
The gunman also told officers that he had left improvised explosive devices for them to find, Brown said. “The suspect stated that he was not affiliated with any groups,” the police chief added, “and he stated that he did this alone.”
Later in the day, the New York Times reported that the dead gunman, identified as Micah Xavier Johnson, 25, appeared to be the sole attacker, according to a senior law enforcement official.
Johnson, The Guardian reported, was an Army reservist who served in Afghanistan from November 2013 to July 2014, according to his service record.
What appears to have been his Facebook page was removed from the network on Friday afternoon, but it showed that he recently used a “Black Power” poster as his cover photo, and his most recent profile picture, uploaded six weeks ago, was of himself making that salute.
While the Dallas Police Department clearly made an effort to use social networks to document the peaceful nature of the protest before the attack and keep the public informed after it, the officers were somewhat reckless in the way they allowed rumors to spread about a man who was initially described as a suspect and then cleared.
At 10:52 p.m. the department posted a photograph of a man in a camouflage shirt marching in the protest earlier that night with a rifle strapped across his chest and asked for the public’s help in finding “one of our suspects.”
That tweet was taken down on Friday afternoon, but only after it had remained on the police department’s Twitter feed for more than 14 hours, despite the fact that the man, Mark Hughes, was not involved in the attack and was shown in a Facebook Live clip identifying himself to a police officer and handing over his weapon in the immediate aftermath of the attack.
Facebook video of DPD's original person of interest, handing over his weapon to authorities
— Mike Leslie (@MikeLeslieWFAA) July 8, 2016
Via facebook live videohttps://t.co/hDmeV6T4sz
The same photograph was provided to reporters and broadcast on the department’s Periscope channel almost two hours later as someone identified by the police chief as “a person of interest who witnesses at the scene say was involved in this shooting.”
In fact, video uploaded to Twitter at 9:06 p.m. by the Dallas Morning News photo desk showed Hughes — with his rifle still slung over his shoulder, pointing down — was among the protesters trying to figure out what had happened after the attack began.
Shots fired at #blacklivesmattertx March @dallasnews pic.twitter.com/2TqIQgkXVm
— DMN Photo (@dallasnewsphoto) July 8, 2016
Hughes was carrying his rifle because Texas law permits the “open carry” of long guns, and he is a believer in the Second Amendment, the Washington Post reported.
His brother, Cory Hughes, is a social activist who wrote on Instagram on Thursday that he had been asked to speak at the protest.
As soon as Mark Hughes found out that he had been identified as a person of interest, he approached the police.
In a Facebook Live update from the police interrogation room, Cory Hughes asked his followers to let the world know that his brother had nothing to do with the attack.
After Mark Hughes was interrogated by the police, he and his brother told the CBS News affiliate in Dallas that the officers had lied to Mark, saying they had witness accounts and video of him firing his gun.
Cory Hughes also said that he and his brother were getting death threats on Facebook and Twitter as a result of the department’s failure to adequately clear Mark’s name.
The news outlets that put this mans face on the news as a cop killer should PLASTER this picture on the screen. pic.twitter.com/eMGc0qPdmf
— LEFT (@LeftSentThis) July 8, 2016
There was also evidence that even though those paying close attention to the story knew that Hughes was not involved, internet news algorithms were still associating him with the attack.
Google gives me this headline next to photo of innocent Mark Hughes. Automated news maybe not such a good idea? pic.twitter.com/8fkDnqwmgu
— Billmon (@billmon1) July 8, 2016
Although the “Justice for #AltonSterling #PhilandoCastile” rally on Thursday night was widely identified as a Black Lives Matter event, it was organized on Facebook by Jeff Hood, a pastor and activist, and Dominique Alexander, founder of the Next Generation Action Network. In a video interview with the Dallas Morning News on Friday, Hood said that one of the aims of the march was to help people channel the anger and rage they felt at the killing of the two men this week by the police into something positive.
More tid bits about false flag, via Homeland Security:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/07/08/like-a-little-war-snipers-shoot-11-police-officers-during-dallas-protest-march-killing-five/
“While police had said Thursday they believed “two snipers” opened fire on officers “from elevated positions,” authorities said Friday that they determined only one person shot at police.
” “At this time, there appears to have been one gunman with no known links to or inspiration from any international terrorist organization,” Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said Friday afternoon.”
And earlier from TX news:
http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/Protests-in-Dallas-Over-Alton-Sterling-Death-385784431.html
“Police had initially said they believed there were two shooters. After the standoff ended, Brown gave no more details about a possible second shooter. Authorities had also said at one point that three suspects were in custody and a fourth dead.”
While Reddit notes:
https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/4rsb4k/shots_fired_at_dallas_protests/d53pyr5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILTlIFW0Z2U&feature=youtu.be
“STATEMENT FROM CITY OF DALLAS – 2 SNIPERS, 10 SHOT, 3 DEAD, 2 CRITICAL”
Does anyone else find it eerie that Television Media and the larger news organizations aren’t really calling/labeling the Dallas killings as Retaliation? I’ve only been able to find one or two stories like the Chicago Tribune who have called/labelled the Dallas killings as ‘retaliatory’.
It seems that they don’t want to label this incident this way as it would then give acknowledgement to, and recognize that, policy brutality exists and thus be criticizing police departments.
Any thoughts?
Retaliation is only right when White Americans or Israelis do it.
I haven’t seen any figures of the number of police deployed at this protest. Obviously more than 12… In at least one photo the police are shown without hats or helmets. They weren’t deployed in riot gear?
Lone agents like this are rare and not part of a concerted and organised process that will continue once they are stopped. It may help to bring communities and their law enforcement professionals closer together, or it may make the police more paranoid and quick to inappropriate violence when performing their jobs. It is impossible to tell. What is possible to tell is that America is a TROUBLED MESS and its leaders are seeking to further that troubled mess overseas.
It is time for people everywhere to join the dots and realise this is what happens when a fascist and imperialst ambition to dominate becomes prevalent in a powerful country’s policy-making.
– More violence
– More extreme rhetoric
– More controls
– Less freedom and tolerance
– Aggression overseas
– More spying
– More manipulation through the media
– More manipulation through financing and trade deals
– More divisiveness
These things DO NOT occur with increasing intensity under regimes seeking peace and understanding and BOTH Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump mean to carry this on possibly over the edge and into World War 3, if they do not pour calming waters on the Middle East and end the drive towards controling the fixing of oil prices.
The US Poice themselves are there to Protect and Serve the populous of the USA, so it is time for them to decide WHO they serve – a small controlling elite that are absolutely abusing their control of the funding and recruitment within the police force, or ALL PEOPLES, domestic or foreign, within the USA.
This controling elite are a minority in the USA, and the USA is a minority in the Rest of the World, and the Rest of the World is not at all interested in being ruled by the USA, and especially not interested in being ruled by its arrogant and insane elite.
As a supposedly proud (and often boastful) democratic nation it is not right for the people of America to wash their hands of the responsibilities and consequences of their leaders’ actions. Your government defines you, like it or not. When Obama murders Africans and Muslims, YOU MURDER AFRICANS AND MUSLIMS. When Obama bankupts nations YOU BANKRUPT NATIONS. When Obama spies on the world, YOU SPY ON THE WORLD.
EVERY SINGLE AMERICAN. So if you allow that to continue, you agree with it and want it. And if you do not like it, yet refuse to act, then you have no democracy and you live in a gilded cage as a supine taxpaying slave.
I know which side I stand on – do you?
“US or Them…”
This is a George W. Bush philosophy and belongs back in the dark ages. It’s been my experience that things are usually gray or on a sliding scale. With this type of thinking, you refuse to believe in compromise. And comprise is what brings peace and stability.
People don’t respond well to absolutes.
Assuming the United States is a democracy, the electorate is collectively responsible for its government’s actions, but to say that each individual voter is entirely responsible for everything the government does is an immature and counterproductive perspective.
When I lived in the US in the 80s I had a really unpleasant feeling of it being a police state (and racist too). From what I have heard/read/seen it must have gotten a lot worse since then.
Thus, whilst condeming the attack the fullest, I must say that I am not surprised. In fact I am surprised that attacks like this are not more prevalent.
As a general comment: it seems as if the US 1% economic and political elite has not learned the lesson that if you put a lid on a pot and crank up the heat hot steam will escape and if you push down the lid without reducing the heat you will get burnt. Sure the 99% is boiling in the pot, but ineviatbly there will be some hot steam escaping.
Just my 2 centavos
Who is the person dressed in black casually walking directly in front of shooter and downed cop? Look at the goldie gorilla video. A person is walking by as shooter is shooting cop and the person continues walking as nothing is happening. Pause video and you’ll see a figure walking – it doesn’t make sense.
Sometimes, things don’t. In WW2, a small group of American soldiers walked past a small group of German soldiers…they both kept going until they went into woods on their respective sides. One CAN get caught perfectly flat-footed.
Just curious, but did you see the segment I’m referring to?
I did see the same footage, and had the same question. The idea that sometimes things don’t make sense, as an acceptable analysis of the oddity is quite ludicrous. I have been in many circumstances where I have seen the effect of an unexpected shot or fire work or other loud noise, and it is certainly NOT just to continue walking like nothing has happened.
Furthermore, in this time of extreme manipulation and propagandizing by the governemnt, it is extremely important NOT to just accept things that don’t make sense, but to ask why. Historically too many people today in America have just accepted the governemnt line on how events have played out, and millions have paid the consequences. The time for naivete is over, we need to be diligent and try and put the pieces together ourselves, because the governemnt or the media are certainly not going to do it for us.
Looked at it a few times…shooter seems to shot…then duck away. Tell me…if YOU were in the position of the guy walking by, what would you do?
Can’t answer because I don’t know the person’s role or position. I imagine if I were a victim of circumstance, I would would most likely jump, duck, and I imagine I would look like I just heard a gunshot that discharged ten feet away from me. But if I were somehow complicit then I might appear less surprised. I think we are perhaps writing about different segments of the video. Doesn’t matter either way.
Obama should have explained _why_ violence is unjustified: because it always incites more violence. He can’t very well do that, though, being a major player in the tit-for-tat game himself. The US needs a leader who actually understands how to wind down violence rather than ratchet it up.
This attack also blows apart the NRA’s juvenile cowboys-and-indians theory that having lots of armed people around will prevent mass shooting attacks. The police were heavily armed, and still this one man killed several of them. The US needs to decide whether it’s ready to grow up and become civilised, or continue chasing power (i.e., disempowering others) and punishment (i.e., revenge).
Now for something completely different…
NSA LABELS LINUX JOURNAL READERS AND TOR AND TAILS USERS AS EXTREMISTS
http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/nsa-labels-linux-tails-users-extremists/?hl=1&noRedirect=1
If you are using Tor, Tails, or Linux Journal you are now labeled an “extremist” by the NSA.
Just a heads up.
There are several parts of this narrative that, just like Orlando, don’t make sense. Yes people were killed, this time police officers in supposed revenge for all the police executions against, mostly, black Americans. The early reports, jumbled as they are, actually give the best picture of the story which then has to be put together by savvy people before being purged and cleaned up into a coherent story by ‘officials’. How did multiple shooters, one which was on the ground level, become a lone shooter blown up by a drone? Why did the chief keep changing his story to keep the public informed? All the sudden people ‘of interest’ are released to go about their merry way as the media keeps spinning new stories to account for the carnage on police at a “black lives matter” peaceful protest. Just like Orlando and San Bernardino, this story has parts that don’t make sense and as Judge Judy says “if it doesn’t make sense, it isn’t true”. These stories have be taken over by the feds and once again we’ll be denied autopsy, and forensics that would maybe explain the ‘real’ story which we’ll never get, at least ‘officially’.
True of every composite narrative ever. Direct your scrutiny at the mundane and the exact same “discrepancies” occur. It’s like you think there’s some stable worldview. Judge Judy? Not my idea of an ontologist.
Language matters on multiple levels. For example, this from the current Guardian article on this topic:
No, nobody is protesting against perceptions. In some cases protesters might be protesting something that did not happen, but still, it is not the perception that they are protesting. But in this case, the use of excessive deadly force is all too real. Using the word “perceived” is chicken shit journalism as well as a bad use of language.
Somehow my name got truncated to one letter.
“Perceived”
It’s actually intellectually dishonest, not just chickenshit. It’s denying the existence of the problem.
What’s also dishonest about conversations that take place when black Americans are murdered by police is how politicians and media talk about Gun Control.
This was Hillary Clinton’s response to getting endorsements from Travan Martin & Eric Garner’s mothers.
To respond to the police brutality argument with talk of gun control is totally dishonest.
The police will never be disarmed. The victims of police brutality are often normal routine interactions with citizens or persons already in police custody.
This is the sort of intellectual dishonesty politicians and police departments routinely use to de-legitimize the discussion or to avoid discussion of the real problem of police brutality.
And for the Media not to point this out is basically them either not doing their job or assisting with the intellectual dishonesty.
US are so involved in provoking Russia and China to a third world war, that they didn’t realize that the war is inside their border.
Obama went to UK to threaten british people about the risk of losing the “special relation” with US in case of brexit, but he lost the special relation with his people instead.
The world is changing, it is a multipolar world, it is a world where fighting doesn’t mean capitalism vs. communism, doesn’t mean right vs. left, its about people vs. elite, as in 1789 we are on the brink of a new taking of the Bastille and Washington could be Versailles.
The disturbingly and mercilessly efficient murderer was taught his killer skills by Uncle Sam.
Reminds me of that scene in Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket where nut job USMC gunnery sergeant Hartman asks the troop who Charles Whitman and Lee Harvey Oswald were. The speech wasn’t lost on another nut job.
And yes, said Lee Harvey Oswald got his 15 minutes (give or take a day) of fame only a couple of corners away.
Does his military record state how many “wogs” did he take out during his so-called “tours of duty” in Afghanistan? (And what is the current derogatory term in the US forces?)
Oswald was captured alive rather than being snuffed out on the spot, despite being armed and having reportedly trying to shoot the policeman who was approaching him:
Wikipedia entry:
As police arrived, the house lights were brought up and Brewer pointed out Oswald sitting near the rear of the theater. Police Officer Nick McDonald testified that he was the first to reach Oswald and that Oswald seemed ready to surrender saying, “Well, it is all over now.” However, Officer McDonald said that Oswald pulled out a pistol tucked into the front of his pants, then pointed the pistol at him, and pulled the trigger. McDonald stated that the pistol did not fire because the pistol’s hammer came down on the webbing between the thumb and index finger of his hand as he grabbed for the pistol. McDonald also said that Oswald struck him, but that he struck back and Oswald was disarmed.[194][195] As he was led from the theater, Oswald shouted he was a victim of police brutality.[196]
“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive and judiciary, in the sam hands, whether one, a few in many, and whether heredity, self-appointed or elective, may be justly pronounced the very definition of tyranny. ”
— James Madison (Federalist 47)
The police departments in the US have the politicians, judges and prosecutors all working lock-step to deny justice to the victims of repeated murders occurring against a specific class of citizens.
To habitually deny a class of citizens their rights and conduct arbitrary murder within that class is tyranny.
The fact that some members of that class take action, including violence, against those institutions that conduct tyranny is liberation or revolution.
Honest people of good conscious have a duty to use any and all means to rid themselves of tyranny. And they can do so and not be categorized as mentally ill.
I also had a problem with the “mentally ill” label. Why is someone fighting back against oppression and murder mentally ill, even if you don’t agree with using violence?
Exactly.
Robert Mackey: Would you compose the same timeline for statements – both from police radio, eyewitnesses, and official – regarding the snipers. When did multiple snipers become just a single sniper; and where is his body now? is there any way to confirm the police account since the sniper, from official accounts, is dead?
Would you also make comments on the possibility of Dallas being another false flag operation, which immediately turned international discussions away from murders by the corrupt police (rubber stamped by the DoJ and FBI) to a story concocted for sympathy towards the police?
Thank you.
strawberry fields
nothing is real
AND NOTHING TO GET HUNG ABOUT
As evidence:
http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/Protests-in-Dallas-Over-Alton-Sterling-Death-385784431.html
“Police had initially said they believed there were two shooters. After the standoff ended, Brown gave no more details about a possible second shooter. Authorities had also said at one point that three suspects were in custody and a fourth dead.”
https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/4rsb4k/shots_fired_at_dallas_protests/d53pyr5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILTlIFW0Z2U&feature=youtu.be
“STATEMENT FROM CITY OF DALLAS – 2 SNIPERS, 10 SHOT, 3 DEAD, 2 CRITICAL
To me the fundamental mystery of this case is coming down to a Facebook post by the African American Defense League. Supposedly, the shooter read this hours before deciding to go on his rampage. However, people were criticizing Facebook’s inconsistent standards on censorship back in December 2015, using THIS POST as their shining example: http://www.illwriteit.com/african-american-defense-league-calls-for-death-of-white-cops/
Now what does it mean when someone sees someone calling for the shooting of police officers on Facebook, and complains, and they do nothing? I see two possibilities. a) Facebook had a Pauline conversion I didn’t hear about and stopped deciding to be censoring prats. Which I think is unlikely. Or b) Facebook was told this was a police entrapment site and did nothing about it so somebody at DHS could keep putting visitors on the no-fly list. That I believe!
Based on this logic, I predict that despite all apparent parallels to the Haymarket Massacre, there is not going to be any big trial this time. (Indeed, there’s not even a single Google News hit for “Haymarket”, which goes to show that yes, Dorothy, you will never get a job with your History degree) Oh, they’d *love* to round up every Black Lives Matter speaker in the area and get out the nooses, or if that seems politically incorrect, do a Chicago Eight thing. But they can’t, because the #1 cheerleader of the whole thing is, I would guess, a government site, and the government is too embarrassed to admit that.
And people say the FBI isn’t out to protect our freedom of speech! :)
Try another search engine for Haymarket. I found lots of entries.
The ADL recalls the JDL, would seem the brainiacs at the gov would come up w/ someting like that; was it Rabbi Kahane who said violence is sometimes necessary, it’s always sad, but it’s sometime necessary?
Dallas experienced what goes on daily in other countries. It’s just closer to home. Excellent article, Robert Mackey. And thank you, Intercept.
Let’s not forget that Johnson was a vet, trained in the art of urban warfare; the military certainly does a good job of it, indicated by his ‘taking out’ of the officer shooting behind a pillar, and the belief that there were four shooters, not one. If he’d been in Kabul, conducting this ‘action’, he’d doubtless receive a medal for heroism. Instead his former Commander in Chief, the man who sent him off to a senseless war, called him nasty names.
If this seems uncaring, perhaps it is. Perhaps living in a country perpetually at war with damn near everyone and everything has hardened me against senseless violence. Yet, this crime still makes more sense than blowing away a movie theater or a classroom of 6 year-olds.
If the police were required to live where they ‘serve and protect’, instead of commuting from a suburb, perhaps they would be less likely to act like an occupying army. If the US government decided to spend its wealth on helping people rather than ‘protecting the Homeland’, there would be a lot less violence in this world.
“Perhaps living in a country perpetually at war with damn near everyone and everything has hardened me against senseless violence. ”
I think that is the goal. Be more like Israel. Israel has been at war its entire pathetic existence. Israel dominates our politics so why would this country not behave like Israel regarding our neighbors?
Well said. No coincidence IzraHell has been training many of our heroic police chiefs in ‘urban pacification’ lately, methinks.
Well he actually got his “urban warfare training” from some gym in Texas that caters to the paramilitary-fetish crowd. In Afghanistan he was part of a construction battalion, not engaged in active combat:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/07/08/what_we_know_about_reported_dallas_shooter_micah_xavier_johnson.html
This is an aspect of this attack that the corporate media is trying to avoid discussing, as part of their ongoing agenda of keeping foreign policy issues out of the public spotlight. The government doesn’t want a public discussion of why it’s okay to engage in assassinaton and drone strikes overseas, when it deplores mass shootings at home.
Liberal Democrats who facilitate arms sales to foreign dictatorships while trying to ban gun sales at home don’t want their hypocrisy exposed in the press; conservative Republicans calling for ‘due process’ for anyone whose gun rights are threatened don’t want to talk about extrajudicial assassinations in Pakistan in the same interview.
Obama’s response was a good example of this trend:
He said this at a NATO summit aimed at ratcheting up military tensions in eastern Europe, hilariously enough. Almost as ludicrous as going to Hiroshima to bemoan nuclear weapons threats while signing off on a 30-year $1 trillion nuclear weapons ‘modernization program’. How many civilians have been killed in the U.S.-supported Saudi war on Yemen? How many civilians died in the U.S.-supported regime change games in Libya and Syria, all overseen by Obama?
From another Obama speech:
This is not who we are? Come on, our foriegn policy is run by aggressive idiots who spawn endless blowback due to poorly thought out military interventions and drone strikes and regime change games, and who have sucked us into a military occupation in Afghanistan that’s gone on for longer than Vietnam did. Is it any surprise that we have so much violence at home, as well?
Very well put.
Yup. Nailed it.
It’s exactly who we are and who we have been, pretty much since we were a collection of colonies.
The Brits didn’t send their refined citizenry and the intellectual elite, you know.
I agree with what you said, but I would bet we still paid for the Army to teach him how to shoot.
If he was in a construction battalion, the only real rifle training he received was likely in basic training. You don’t learn that level of effective marksmanship in a few sessions on the range in basic.
Of course, it’s unlikely that his Afghanistan tour enhanced his appreciation for the value of life.
And watching news reports of an unending stream of police killings of poor, black, brown and mentally ill people — and children — probably didn’t help either.
What goes around comes around.
Exactly who the U.S. is, though I wouldn’t use the term “we.” I don’t own a gun and don’t drive (the latter meaning that I don’t vote for oil wars by directly consuming oil), and I advocate for closing all foreign U.S. military bases, including those in Japan and Korea, then cutting military spending by at least 75% and absolutely prohibiting attacking other countries that do not attack us. So this is certainly not who at least some of us are.
Well, if you were visiting the Middle East, you’d be labeled “American” regardless of your personal views. It’s that whole in-group/out-group thing; that’s also why if a member of one racial group is a victim of violence or injustice from a member of another racial group, then they tend to lump all such people into the same group.
This results in, for example: black people who hate white people and Latinos; white people who hate black people and Latinos; Latinos who hate black people and whites – it’s all the same prison gang mentality. It also applies to Japanese-Chinese tensions, Irish Catholic – British Protestant tensions, Hutu-Tutsi conflict, Israeli-Palestinian, Shia-Sunni, you name it.
It does piss me off because a lifelong dream of mine was once to ride a bicycle all the way around the Mediterranean, starting in North Africa at the Atlantic, but thanks to all the wars my fucking idiot government has prosecuted, all the dictators it has propped up, I’d surely be shot or kidnapped along the way as a hated American.
Thought it was Crossfit gym, oops
Initial reporting is often jumbled. More interesting to me is how the media/politicos try to spin this.
In particular, they are saying that the perpetrator was killed by a robot–not a drone. If it was drone, instead of a robot, this would probably be the first time an American was killed on American soil by a drone.
But it wasn’t a drone. It was a robot. Do not use the word drone. It will annoy your editor.
As an aside, Ghostery seems to count YouTube videos as trackers. This page has four trackers for those who are concerned about that sort of thing.
A drone IS a robot system used to kill remotely. how is that different from a machine delivering a bomb? We have now finished creating a military presence in what used to be a civilian based police.
Are police departments morphing into their state national guard to the point where only by the color of the uniform shall we be able to tell them apart? The weaponry, tactics and mindset will be the same.
It appears that way to me; except, perhaps, the National Guard (which is actually just the Federal Army in reserve) only has the policing power presumably when there is martial law?
I can see George Mason’s language from 17th Am about standing army being a threat applied here; perahps cops are becoming the new British troops.
John Oliver did a piece on Ferguson he said the police should dress for the job they have not dress for the job they want to have.. dress was referring to all the miltary gear and eqp being brandished during Ferguson issues.
I did a tour of duty as a medical corpsman in Vietnam. And yesterday I felt like I was back in Vietnam. Our country has become a war zone. We are on the verge of armed insurrection. Sure, the shooter was a mentally disturbed veteran of the war in Afghanistan. And Texas does have a liberal “open carry” law on sidearms. But what happened in downtown Dallas recalls the hot and violent summer of 1968. At least it does to me as an aging baby boomer. And just as all the demons we unleashed during the Vietnam War came back to haunt us, so too with those that we unleashed in the long war on terror. What you sow is what you reap. Now I’ve recently read an op-ed by John Chiatt in New York magazine which refuses my contention. That we aren’t in a race war. But he seems to be in denial intellectually to me. There has been an ongoing race war against African Americans by police officers across this country. And sooner or later, I thought a tragedy such as what happened in Dallas was in our future. It seems we are in for a long, hot and violent summer that hearkens back to the summer of 1968. And I hope I am wrong.
Quite incredible, the Bush/Cheney ‘legacy’. It will poison the USA until its final bitter end.
Please, making it just “the Bush/Cheney legacy” lets far too many others off the hook. It predated and postdates that pair of creeps.
The shooter is a citizen hero IMHO
To the police all I have to say is “How does it feel?”
This Brutality by the POLICE will never stop
until we have CITIZEN POLICE REVIEW and Disciplinary Boards that exercise
complete control over the police departments everywhere
and of course we need to remove the WallStreet/Plutocrat influence also
As an outsider it remarkable to see the militarization on both the civilian and the police side in US society. Individuals taking the law into their own hands. And then the police as well.
Apparently after the police had the suspect contained in the parking garage, and had begun initial negotiations, rather than wait him out, they just appointed themselves judge, jury, executioners and killed the suspect with military equipment.
The irony of the whole situation is that the everyone was there to protest the use of extra legal, lethal force. Yet at least one citizen decided extra legal, lethal force was the solution of choice. And when given the chance the DPD chose extra legal, lethal force as their solution of choice as well.
— Fail all around —
Well put.
Indeed. In spectacular fashion.
For the second time in the last six months the New York City Police Department has without a warrant raided my apartment at gun-point after breaking its door.
Mayor William de Blasio, and Police Commissioner William Bratton refuse to investigate claiming that “no one was shot or killed”.
Who are the terrorists?
There’s an easy answer but hard commitment that can lead to solving this issue and others. It’s called suit-up. Do whatever it takes to put the suit of the oppressor on. Challenge your friends, relatives and neighbors to do the same. It’s a tough road, a hard fight. There will be a lot of obstacles to overcome. But as a combined focused force you and others like you can do this. Get off the side-lines and into the game. Suit-up or shut-up. If you can do the job better put your life on the line for your relatives, your friends, and your neighbors. Suit-up my man.
And herein lies a problematic outlook. “Suit-up or shut-up.” America, “love it or leave it.”
we are all truly fucked now. the fat is in the fire.
if there is no real leadership forthcoming from any other quarter, there will be a military coup in this country and the cops will be in lockstep right behind them.
think it can’t happen here?
our very own pinochet, david petraeus, is tanned, fit and ready, champing at the bit.
see you all in the stadium…
” there will be a military coup in this country”
It already occurred.
What do you think 9/11 was?
The Constitution has been shredded, we invaded and destroyed several sovereign nations, Impeachment “is off the table”, indefinite detention, massive spying, sexual assault by blue uniforms while black uniforms “protect” us, lunatic Presidential ‘candidates’, media corruption, banks owning private prisons with more per capita customers than any other nation on earth, etc.
What does a coup look like? Us.
Minhas condolencias a TODOS ,esses Policias mortos não tem matado Alton nem Castelhe ,Quando a Justiça falha as pessoas naõ tem esperança nem q perder ,la aparecio o atirador de Policias .STPO a violencia não resolve nada.
And the clandestine operatives/snitches working as journalist within rt are ameliorating the news in favor of corrupt murderers under the color of law where the victims of police brutality for many centuries now is still prevalent while claiming and playing the farse of assimilation and integration by serving and protecting with murder and criminality with impunity. We never saw so much coverage for the murders of non-combative, non-threatning father mothers and children as we see the corrupt operatives covering in favor of the corrupt establichment. Disgusting is short.
And it would be disgusting if the corrupt operatives or corrupt law enforcement would implant anything else in the shotter belongings in order to advance their macabre agenda.
The corrupt establishment has already been censoring media like the following video that is a must see and realize.
https://youtu.be/v5asE7Wj_6s
Dear Intercept, the corrupt hidden hands are cencoring my commentary on facebook for posting the following comment.
And the clandestine operatives/snitches working as journalist within independent media like RT are ameliorating the news in favor of corrupt murderers under the color of law where the victims of police brutality for many centuries now is still prevalent while claiming and playing the farse of assimilation and integration by serving and protecting with murder and criminality with impunity and it has no justification either hemingway. We never saw so much coverage for the murders of non-combative, non-threatning father mothers and children as we see the corrupt operatives covering in favor of the corrupt establichment. criminals and murderers under the color of law continue to spark outcry in every street neighborhood of the usa. are you till singing the land of the free? Disgusting is short. .
And it would be disgusting if the corrupt operatives or corrupt law enforcement would implant anything else in the shotter belongings in order to advance their macabre agenda.
The corrupt establishment has already been censoring media like the following video that is a must see and realize.
https://youtu.be/v5asE7Wj_6s
I am sorry but I have a sinking feeling that this attack was not blowback but perhaps a deliberate and staged event. Why? The recent shootings were starting to get into corporate mainstream actually creating a sympathetic understanding to what the nature of what Black Lives Matters is truly struggling against and the violence African Americans experience as a threat in their daily lives. The dialogue was shifting in a profound way. And, the next day this weirdly executed assassination in a military style occurs at a peaceful protest to target the police officers. This seems like something done by Blackwater not by a disgruntled citizen. When I say this, I am not saying i know for sure this is what happened in any way, shape, or form. However, this occurring at such a pivotal moment to blunt the momentum to turn the country in empathy with Black Lives Matter gives me serious pause. At a gut level, something seems REALLY off with this –
Yes. Especially that strange, very scripted sounding “final statement”. It’s just weird, too perfect.
Agree…the events are too coincidental and the killings were too professional – it has all the markings of a false flag operation.
Venetian noble families who have controlled world finance for 700 years also pay the analysts at the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, as well as gifted PR agencies, to mastermind and generate fake news events. These PR events are legal, for the protection of “national security,” under US law. The propaganda methods are tried and true, having 700 years of testing and the top Tavistock analysts to back them up. The goals are the transformation of society, so that it aligns with the political goals of the Venetian noble families — primarily, they want to protect their power. They also see their unelected rule as necessary for the continuation of our “free” society. If they were sincere, they would let us vote people into their positions of power. Obviously, they believe they are genetically superior to everyone else, since they are not interested in allowing that to happen. The people of the world need to stand up and ask that we be allowed to vote — without manipulation — our own spiritual and wise leaders into these positions of power that the Venetians hold. The Venetians are not wise or gifted. They are God-less and immoral.
Well, let’s consider the opposing arguments:
On one hand, there’s a small fraction of the BlackLivesMatter movement whose rhetoric is not about peaceful resolution but more like some KKK pamphlet for race war. All it takes is one idiot out of a million peaceful protesters to buy into that rhetoric, and the damage is done.
Now, to take the other side, the exact identity of that small angry pro-violence fraction is open to question – are they agent provocateurs, in other words? Are these the people in masks who smash windows in front of the TV cameras, and try to incite violence at peaceful protests? This is a government tactic with a long history. Here is some video of undercover police caught in the act doing this in Canada:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=St1-WTc1kow
However, sometimes bad things happen for no good reason; but many people are more comfortable with the notion that everything is controlled by something, everything happens for a reason – it could be UFOs, supernatural beings, the Bilderbergers – that’s the psychology of the Big Conspiracy.
But in this case, you’ve got an angry young man with military training and an urban combat fetish and access to powerful weapons, plausibly influenced by angry rhetoric, who was pushed over the edge by media reports about black people being killed by white police officers.
That being said, another thing to consider is that with Muslims, FBI informants have tried time and again to ‘radicalize’ young Muslim men so that they could build terrorist cases against them. Was a similar effort made with Black Lives Matter protesters? This was, after all, a common COINTELPRO tactic from the late 1960s and early 1970s, i.e. to use informers inside activist groups to push them into violent acts for which they could be prosecuted and arrested, as a means of discrediting their group and blocking their agenda.
This is a very dangerous strategy; trying to light a fuse without knowing what the fuse is attached to is pretty reckless.
But, I really couldn’t say, either way. Without hard evidence, it’s all just speculation.
You reference to “some KKK pamphlet for race war” is illegitimate. There is no comparison between Black people fighting back after centuries of oppression and crimes being committed against them, and white oppressors who are pissed because they can no longer own slaves and the former slaves have gotten uppity. Whether you think violence is a legitimate or successful way to fight back is a legitimate issue, but Black separatists are certainly not on a level with the KKK.
There is certainly a chance that this was some black- or psychological operation, but there is no evidence of that and the shooter would have to be suicidal. The problem with saying stuff like this is that it could deligitimize the whole Black Lives Matter movement. If you are shown be wrong, the movement could be seen as a bunch of conspiracy nutcases. Even if neither side could prove its case, most people don’t believe that the government would do something like this, regardless of the fact that they do.
I’d say keep an open mind to what this and other such events might actually be, but don’t publicize conspiracy theories like this unless you have strong evidence to support your case. Most people in the U.S. are not black and they won’t sympathize with the Black Lives Matter movement if they think they’re a bunch of nutcases.
I also found the “bomb robot” very disturbing. Is this a first? I’ve never heard of such a thing and it sounds horrifying.
In my book the Dallas shooters are ‘ Citizen Heroes ‘ in the War ON POLICE TYRANNY. GOD bless them for their courageous acts.
For the police all I can say is “How does it feel?”
To end this all we need is Citizen Review/Disciplinary Boards for all police Dept’s across the country. Very simple solution.
Citizen review boards would be a good start, but what’s needed goes far beyond that. The police need to be greatly curtailed by removing their military equipment and their virtual immunity from prosecution, and they need to stop being the army of the rich. Until those things change, murders by police are not going to stop. And those things won’t change in a society where the majority of the people, even on the left, worship the police.
Something like this was so long overdue.
I’m sure this event will be twisted by the police and politicians to not reflect what actually caused this event, but rather how best to suppress the public’s right to protest.
I’ll give 8:5 odds on a Republican politician coming out within 1-2 weeks with legislation banning protest groups in numbers greater than 10-20 persons.
Did the police kill the shooter with a claymore? If so, what are the police doing with a military anti-personnel mine? Are they allowed military weapons?
Thanks Robert Mackey for putting all this together!!
Much appreciated.
Glad you found it useful.
I have no sympathy for what happened to Dallas PD. I can not find sympathy in me. I wish I could. If anything I’m twice as angry to learn about the use a BOMBrobot to kill one of the so call ” suspect”. I guarantee if the ” suspect” in question was a white man, there will be no BOMB robot to talk about. No police officers in the United States of America deserves our sympathy .None. Note: I hope at some point The Intercept will address the issue of our police forces being continuously trained by the genocidal zionist regime, a.k.a ‘israel”.
coo-coo. It’s trained by extremist CHRISTIANS.
I agreed with your post until you got on the Israel rant. Yes, Israel is evil, but that has nothing to do with this issue. The problem here is that the main job of cops is protecting the rich, along with their property and power, and so the rich in turn protect cops from being prosecuted for murdering Black people.
Stay on point and people will respect your comments. Raising irrelevant issues does more harm than good. There are plenty of posts on which to comment about the evils of Israel, but this isn’t one of them.
The “Leader” of the movement acts like he was caught unaware? BS!!!
He had knowledge and kept it to himself.
Well, if you know that, then why didn’t YOU prevent it?
I’m disappointed with Adam Gopnik’s response in the New Yorker, while Jelani Cobb’s is much smarter. I’m just saying this here because I can’t indicate an opinion there. I have respected a lot of Gopnik’s articles in the past, but it’s like he can’t get beyond his partisan understanding of who “should” be wielding firearms and who “shouldn’t”: nowhere does he suggest that trigger-happy cops have anything to do with our problems. His remarks about comparing 1968 to 2016 are equally clueless: dude, you have no idea how deep the alienation runs NOW.
By contrast, Cobb manages an appropriately elegiac and tragic response. No easy answers suggested.
Here’s something relevant:
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/07/is-it-ok-to-send-a-police-robot-to-deliver-a-bomb-to-kill-an-active-shooter/
Given the huge deliveries of military equipment to local police forces in the US, it’s a little surprising that Predator drones armed with missiles haven’t been included in the arsenals; drone strikes inside the U.S.?
I do think the killing of this suspect in Dallas, who was actively shooting at people, is far more justifiable than the ambush-assassination of a criminal terrorism suspect in Pakistan or Yemen or Somalia by a drone strike – in the latter case, why not instead send in a military or police team to capture and extradite the suspect for trial (and not for black site torture)?
This was the best possible excuse for such an action – still, one suspects this is not the last killer robot to be deployed, and that is worrisome.
The foremost question that will need to be answered in this case is whether the explosion was really needed to prevent IMMINENT harm. The difference between this and an ordinary police shootout isn’t really a bomb vs. gun or machine vs. man, but that in a shootout of men there is a line of sight going in both directions, which means that each attempt to kill is balanced by risk of death. Even with bullets, when that isn’t required to be true – for example, the killing of Fred Hampton when he is sleeping – then things rapidly get out of hand. Now to be clear, I think the police would have little difficulty arguing for imminent harm – the shooter had certainly outclassed them tactically. I can’t imagine trying to claim that the cops had everything under control and there was no chance the shooter would get loose and kill somebody else if they didn’t act. But in the future we will have to watch for that, and I fear it will not be long until that is exactly the situation in some other case.
We are witnessing the numbing of the minds of the American public. Turn on the tv and witness trailers for nothing but bombs, guns, and further abuses, same thing goes on programming. One is now numbed by the goings on and we’ve been numbed yet again about the drones in Pakistan and god knows where else. The fact that a robotic device delivered an explosive device tells me that we are of the same bolt of cloth that the “evil killers in Pakistan and Iraq are. Be afraid all of you rational people.
Suicide-bombing by robot is a very dangerous technology that the Islamic jihadist folks like Isis and al Q will pick up and try to implement since they are now running short of volunteers. We should classify this technology and not reveal its use, just like we do for stingray equipment.
Yeah,they are developing it in their own silicon(sand)valley.sheesh.
More blowback from the war of terror?Afghanistan disgust?
A lone gunman is better than 4 as far as the hysteria meter is concerned.
And yeah,another dead man,as in they tell no tales.Very consistent that.
“And yeah,another dead man,as in they tell no tales.Very consistent that.”
conclusive evidence that it’s a hoax
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFn55E9YWJk
Where do you get your information that “Isis and al Q…are now running short of volunteers”? What sort of special knowledge do you have to make such a statement? As for suicide-bombing by robot, it lacks practicality–the main advantage human suicide bombers have is looking like ordinary human beings, which allows them to get close to their target without attracting attention. Try that with a robot.
Turns out to be Army vs. Cops.
Consider the pathos of the statement of the sister of the gunman:
“We may fuss or fight but at the end of the day i love him!!,” she wrote in a 2014 post. “He’s definitely army strong but also a entertaining, loving, understanding, not to mention handsome friend, brother, son and etc!! Idk what I’d do without him. Happy Birthday my homeskillet biscuit!!!!
#Still waiting for you to return home!”
The ARMY trained this man to kill without remorse. Look how the sister absorbed their (stupid) slogan “Army Strong” into her positive description of her brother — just an example of how they tried to fit into what society apparently expected of them, and how sick that was.
Maybe we as a nation could have a little talk about the advisability of turning thousands of young people into sociopathic killers as a career?
Slandering everyone who goes into the military as a “sociopathic killer” is nonsense, just as calling all police officers “authoritarian thugs” is slander; yes, such people exist, but there are just as many of these criminal types wearing the “private citizen” label. It’s no different from calling all Muslims “jihadis in training” or something similar.
The vast majority of people who go into the military do it out of a sense of duty or because they have few other economic options, not because they are sadists who want to kill people.
And, in fact, most soldiers who come back from war zones suffer all kinds of remorse, why do you think the suicide rate is so high among Iraq and Afghanistan veterans? Maybe they ran over a kid while racing through Baghdad, and they’re haunted by it for the rest of their lives.
The real issue is the people who send young soldiers over to foreign countries to slaughter civilians so that these same people – Bush, Blair and their associated cohort of oil company executives, arms dealers and banksters can get rich off war profiteering.
You want to point a finger, then at least point it in the right direction. The real war criminals are the ones directing the show, not the kids thrown into the meat grinder.
Nowhere did I imply that everybody in the army ends up a sociopath, but seriously: instilling murderous sociopathy, training people to kill without a second thought — is a big part of the training regimen. And the training is what I am focusing on, so thereby I am indeed living up to your advice, that I should “point a finger” at “the real war criminals” who “are the ones directing the show.” Exactly.
The military produces a lot of sociopaths, and always has. Charles Willeford noted it about the aftermath of World War II — the supposed “good war” — and how hard it was for some guys to re-adjust to civil society afterwards: so it ain’t by any means a new problem.
My take is that the sociopathy is something that came first; this is true for police, soldiers, etc. Probably develops during the teenage years or earlier, often due to an abusive childhood.
One of the uglier examples was one Steven Green, who raped a 14-year old Iraqi girl and killed her family; recently killed himself in a Arizona jail cell:
http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/18/us/soldier-steven-green-suicide/
That’s why you really need to screen people who want to go into the military or police force; unfortunately during wartime they lower standards to build up numbers, so all kinds of tweakers get in. And police forces tend to lack good programs for screening out racists and thugs, too.
Serious reform is needed, obviously enough.
I think you’re right about some of this. Of course, the most applicable situation was the Oklahoma City bombings — but it really is relevant to consider how the ethics of war in general and accepting “collateral damage” in particular play into the plotting of terrorist attacks. This really is a case of chickens coming home to roost in that sense – though obviously something else has gone very wrong when a black man is thinking of his race as a nation being attacked by a white nation; he internalized concepts we more typically associate with the Ku Klux Klan.
That said, the U.S. nonetheless has a huge number of honorable soldiers going to great personal risk in order that they can roam around Iraq/Afghanistan/etc. trying to cultivate relationships for 20+ hours a day while being shot at and blown up, and so they are not really as bad as all that to start with. They try, at great personal cost, to rise above the defective framework of morality that our society has put around them. And the same spirit that restrains much of the worst of the war abroad will do much to hold back the worst from happening at home.
Sorry, many if not most of the military is staffed with people who couldn’t find a decent job and told they would get a college degree, “if they spent their entire tour of duty in a combat zone” which they weren’t told upon signing. Granted there is some humanitarian military souls doing the right thing, but lets face it, we are in that part of the world for nothing more than oil and precious minerals found in that part of the world. Your post mostly rings hollow from this Viet Nam vet who perceives this whole journey as nothing more than controlling the world’s oil supply.
Well, I certainly can’t argue against you; I’ll just say I hope the best for those humanitarian souls.
In war torn middle east, you have two employment options,
Flighter (aka drowning syrian/yemen/libian/afghan refugee)
or
Fighter (ISIS aka moderate rebel)
“Do you really not understand who is fighting in Syria? They are mercenaries, mostly. Do you understand they are paid money? Mercenaries fight for whichever side pays more. So they arm them and pay them a certain amount. I even know what these amounts are.” Putin
Does anybody else get the idea that the police department considered the life of the gunman killed in an explosion to be worth a lot less than the police overtime that would need to be paid just to wait him out? The police will claim that he was an imminent threat, and thus that the killing was not also murder, but I doubt I shall ever believe that story.
Exactly, a protest against the accountable use of lethal force by police ends with the head of the DPD not being held accountable for a decision to — not wait out or negotiate out or gas out a suspect that was contained and surrounded by swat teams — but rather disregard legal responsibilities and use lethal force to carry out an execution of the suspect.
The message from the police by their very actions is “we are above the law, we make the decision on who lives and who dies”. And the police have learned nothing.
This is blowback,plain and simple. Police have been killing civilians on the streets of the U.S. for much longer than there have been cell phones to record it. The difference is now the whole world knows it. Since the people who are in power to do something about it, refuse to prosecute or convict these killer cops,we’ll probably start seeing more of this. I totally oppose this violence but it seems to becoming the norm in this country.
might be one of those long hot summers
I’m not so sure about this new form of twitter journalism. Something too much and too little at the same time. Very raw. The problem is not so much the reporter but the limitations of the medium. Still, whatever the nature of the conduits to prime sources, weren’t journalists supposed to present the news as a finished product in an organized, succinct manner? Are we in the unconscious process of getting rid of middlemen journalists only to plug into the tweets of the little birdies?
As for murder in the streets around the US, forget the war on drugs and the push for gun control. What’s called for now is a war on cell phones. As the Bible says, “If your eye gives you scandal, pluck it out.” Videos keep giving us scandal, so let’s pluck them out. As usual, local authorities have been slow to require tight screening programs at the point of purchase, or to initiate buy back campaigns where apps are already out of the bag.
If ownership of cell phones continues to be a right, not a privilege, despite the fact that cell phones remain the go-to means of upsetting people 24/7, well then those of us who suffer from migraines and vertigo would really appreciate it if mandatory cell phone courses teach people how to hold the thing steady while filming the target.
Cell phones have replaced desktop computers that used to keep restive populations indoors playing virtual games. It is not enough that government monitors every call, text and video; legislators have got to attack the supply side and put an end to the sale of cell phones, whether in bright mall stores purporting to sell apples (see Genesis 3:6 about apples) or in the dark alleys of our big cities.
The White House and Congress haven’t even begun drafting long, sober speeches on the matter. Just a few words before mics with words like “vicious, calculated and despicable” adds up to too little, too late––even if you are in Poland at the moment working with other NATO members to tighten the noose around Russia.
Cell phones must be viewed as gateway drugs. Unless authorities restrict cell phones in the hands of common people, those same commoners will next be recording the deeds of the elite (and their enforcers) with rifle scopes and eye-in-the-sky drones.
Recall Donald Rumsfeld’s response to the Abu Ghraib prison torture & abuse scandal? He confiscated the cell phones and cameras of all soldiers:
http://antiwar.com/blog/2004/05/23/rumsfeld-bans-cameras/
That’s the funny thing about our government; they want to be able to track and spy on everyone via their cell phones, but then they have to accept people collecting and livestreaming video with these same devices. . . but how long before the practices the U.S. finds acceptable in foreign countries are deemed necessary for the “Homeland” as well?
Not long: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/30/apple-iphone-camera-disable-remote-sensors-patent
Totally disagree. Listened to NPR, right wing commentary this morning. Browsed headlines. Saw this article. This article was the only thing that finally told me what happened last night (and I searched for hours before stumbling on this!) Wish I had seen this article first w/out having to wade through what Obama said about this, what Trump said, debates about guns, debates about blue vs black lives matter, and mindless chatter about what does this mean for politicians, gun advocates, etc. I think this format is useful because not every news outlet will have reporters on scene when these all too frequent mass shootings happen. People at these events record them because they want the world to know what is happening. Thank you Intercept for piecing this together into a coherent 1st hand account with important background on the informants for audience discretion.
Thanks, glad it was useful.
“Gateway drug”? That’s some fairly old, pathetic pablum that you’re spewing.
Sarcasm missed. However, the OP was not especially well written either.
Unless authorities restrict cell phones in the hands of common people, those same commoners will next be recording the deeds of the elite (and their enforcers) with rifle scopes and eye-in-the-sky drones.
They don’t need to restrict the phones when they already have the ability to turn off the service:
BART admits halting cell service to stop protests
http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/BART-admits-halting-cell-service-to-stop-protests-2335114.php
And for those who use iPhones:
Apple patent could shut down your phone’s cameras at movie theaters and concerts (or protests, beatings, shootings, etc…)
http://www.chicagotribune.com/bluesky/technology/ct-apple-patent-shuts-off-phone-cameras-20160701-story.html
The essence of “smart” is that you don’t own anything. “Your” phone won’t do what its real owner at the company doesn’t want it to do, and it will do what you don’t want it to do. “Your” plane or train window will only pay attention to your requests when the company wants it to, as mentioned at another article here. And I expect that if you want to take “your” self-driving car past Barbara Streisand’s house, you better be ready to make a damn persuasive application to the company for permission, and expect to be denied anyway. The purpose of technology is to give the powerful additional control over the powerless.
“language of the patent filing suggests that the patent could be used to shut down [*] other sensitive locations,…”
Sure sounds like the Elites would like nothing more to keep a lid on the truth, eh?
Excellent sarcasm!
How many people were shot by police yesterday, last 2 days, 3,4,5,6,7 days? We know of 2 that were unjustified homicides. Where are the representatives from law enforcement publicly stating the shootings were bad? This Dallas incident will happen again and again until our elected representatives do their jobs and change the culture in the police community. They haven’t so civilians will try to do it themselves like those who committed these acts……
It occurs to me that the “police” refuse to believe that there must be
“martyrs” from both sides if change, real change, is too occur. To me that means that they––the police––must “confess” their sins against society, even if they don’t want to, and even if they hold the power (and regardless of the laws their “opponents” might have broken). To refuse to “confess” holds up progress. To refuse to confess is a declaration of license to kill, and the foreswearing (sp? )of accountability. Some cops really do need to go to jail if this has any chance of improving; that’s how they will have to pay, to “martyr” themselves for the better world they insist they represent and are hired to protect and encourage. This is the only way, it doesn’t matter right or wrong any more, law aiding, lawless, police and thieves, whatever you tell yourself to contribute nothing to change.
And so, I have to wonder, if the “police” don’t want to “confess,” and our government leaders can’t compel them to “confess”––then, one might have to conclude that there is no effort to fix the problem. And then you have to ask: What are their intentions? Are they competent? Who benefits for not solving the problem?
@DeGreg-“Who benefits for not solving the problem?”
The American jurisprudence is an industry and its run by a monopoly called the BAR. Members of the BAR write legislation, members consult in writing legislation, members pass legislation into laws, members argue the law in court before another member, that member interprets the law and members are in every branch and every level of our government. Eliminating conflict eliminates the need for members of the BAR.
They are destroying our country!!!!
Powerful words from Cory and Michael Hughes in that last video, worth the full watch.
What the heck is the relevance of Matthew Keys? I looked up the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-23nlUpUte0 (maybe it’s on here and I just don’t see it without enabling scripts so all the main owners of the internet can track me better) – it was broadcast on Fox 4. Have we really gotten to the point already where it’s a subversive “leak” worth journalistic coverage to post a clip from the mainstream news?
War zone America. Welcome to Iraq, everyone.
Any good news? Trump seems to have learned his lesson from the Orlando massacre and isn’t trying to demonize anyone, somewhat encouraging, Clinton and Sanders are also on standard response-to-mass-shooting message. Cue the strategic outpourings of grief and condemnation – it’s basically a pre-written script these days:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/07/dallas-shootings/490469/
Funny how they all promote drone strikes that kill innocent civilians and supposed ‘enemy combatants’, though; why is the slaughter of people abroad so acceptable, when the slaughter of people at home is not? Why do the politicians all line up to support the one, while condemning the other?
Well, the only thing we can be sure of is we’ll have no shortage of police killings, mass shootings, and drone strikes in the future. Perhaps an online betting pool is needed? How many days till the next one, and what will the casualty count be? Isn’t there some way to commodify this trend?
“Come on, come on, come on to a violent world with me. . .”
– the Misfits ( youtube.com/watch?v=HibaUsUZCeI )
“There’s blood in the streets, it’s up to my ankles, blood in the streets, it’s up to my knees. . .”
– the Doors ( youtube.com/watch?v=KRJKOtM-onM )
You don’t seem particularly heartbroken about any of it, just another opportunity to spread some bile & doomhumping Misfits/Doors quotes, eh?
If you count up all the homicides in the United States, it comes to about 42
murders per day. If you look at the rate of killings in Iraq under U.S. occupation, 2003-2008, it was at least 110 per day. Every few minutes, in other words.
So if I was to sit around being heartbroken over the waste of life brought on by senseless violence, that’s all I’d ever do. I do feel sorry for the friends and families of all these dead people whose lives were needlessly wasted, and I don’t like it that greedy elites in my own country engineered the Iraq debacle, or that racial tensions in the U.S. constantly explode into violence, but acting ‘heartbroken’?
No, I’ll leave that act to the politicians and media pundits, thanks. Although they won’t demonstrate any ‘heartbrokenness’ for the victims of foreign military adventures, will they?
And that was what I was getting at, you know; the double standards, the hypocrisy of it all.
I was going with Doors’ “Unknown Soldier”, but whatever works. *Somebody’s* war is over. We lose tens of thousands of people to influenza every year, while a ridiculous array of successful advances in producing vaccines with faster lead time or broader specificity continue to be unimplemented. But with deaths the only thing that matters is the *salesmanship*. The whole world dies, but very rarely does anybody care.
Psy-Ops
May be, but one of the problems with stuff like psychological operations is that they’re deeply secret and we’ll never know absent a heroic whistleblower.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/dallas-shooting-suspect-wanted-kill-white-people-white/story?id=40431306
While we will never know we have no reason to believe this was not the suspects final words, correct? They will cause racial tension / friction. They will be echoed and problematic. The intention of LE in telling us his last words was honesty(to be truthful), I hope and nothing else?