“We’re hurting. Our profession is hurting. Dallas officers are hurting. We are heartbroken. There are no words to describe the atrocity that occurred to our city. All I know is that this must stop. This divisiveness between our police and our citizens.
Our hostage negotiator did an exceptional jog betting this suspect to talk before he died during the hours of negotiating before they broke down. ..
The suspect said he was upset about black lives matter. He said he was upset about 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 suspect said we will eventually find the IEDs.
The suspect said he was not affiliated with any groups and he stated that he did this alone.
…
(Dallas Police and DART officers are)….Some of the bravest men and women you ever want to be associated with. You see video footage after video footage of them running toward gunfire from an elevated position with no chance to protect themselves and to put themselves in harm’s way to make sure citizens can get to a place of Security. Please join me in applauding these brave men and women who do this job under great scrutiny, under great vulnerability who literally risk their lives to protect our Democracy. We don’t feel much support most days. Let’s not make today most days. Please, we need your support to be able to protect you from men like these who carried out this tragic, tragic event.
…
Police officers are guardians of this great Democracy: the freedom to protest, the freedom of speech, the freedom for expression. They are all freedoms we fight for with our lives. It is what makes us who we are as Americans. And so we risk our lives for those rights, so we won’t militarize our policing standards but we will do it in a much safer way every time like we chose to do it this time. We had an adequate amount of officers at this scene. We were blocking traffic and doing all the things to protect people’s right to protest and their free speech. We are not going to let a coward who would ambush police officers change our Democracy.”