2016 Dallas Shooting

Overview

The 2016 Dallas Shooting refers to the ambush of a group of police officers by several armed gunmen during demonstrations against the fatal shootings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile in early July 2016. During the shootout, a total of five police officers were fatally shot, while seven officers and two civilians sustained injuries.

Background

Shootings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile

On July 5th, 2016, Baton Rouge, Louisiana resident Alton Sterling was fatally shot by a police officer while being detained in a convenience store parking lot. The following day, Minnesota resident Philando Castile was fatally shot by a police officer during a routine traffic stop after informing the officer he had a firearm he was licensed to carry according to his girlfriend Diamond Reynolds. Following the shooting, Reynolds streamed the aftermath on Facebook (shown below, right). After videos of the incidents surfaced online, many reacted with outrage, speculating that the shootings were racially motivated.

Dallas Shooting

Following the two shootings, the Next Generation Action Network (NGAN) organized a demonstration in Dallas in protest of the killings, which gathered approximately 800 protesters. According to the Dallas Police Department, at least four snipers fired upon police officers near the Belo Garden Park area, with shots coming from an alleyway, the upper level of a parking garage and other elevated areas. Two suspects were apprehended by police officers and a third was killed by a bomb device deployed by a police-controlled drone. A total of 12 police officers were shot, five of which died due to the injuries. In addition two civilians were injured in the shootout.

Developments

Identity of Shooters

Police revealed that one suspect was 25-year-old Texas resident Micah Xavier Johnson, who told police during negotations that he was motivated by the Black Lives Matter movement and wanted to "kill white people." The additional suspects have yet to be identified.

Mark Hughes' Misidentification

That evening, Texas resident Mark Hughes was wrongly identified as a suspect by the Dallas Police Department Twitter^[8] feed, since he had been photographed at the protest carrying a rifle (shown below). Within 24 hours, the tweet gathered upwards of 40,000 retweets and 18,700 likes.

After turning himself in to the police, Hughes was released after it was determined he had nothing to do with the attack.

Online Reaction

As news of the shooting circulated online, a live-updated thread was launched on Reddit.^[3] That evening, a video taken during the shooting, in which gunfire can be heard in the background, reached the front page of the /r/videos^[2] subreddit (shown below).

Additionally, the Kapitol YouTube channel uploaded footage taken during the incident (shown below).

That same night, a photograph of an officer crying at the Baylor Hospital immediately after the shooting reached the front page of /r/pics^[3] (shown below). Additionally, several discussion threads regarding the shootout reached the front page of the /r/news,^[4] /r/AskReddit,^[5] /r/Dallas^[6] and /r/The_Donald^[7] subreddits.

President Obama's Response

The following morning, United States President Barack Obama spoke to reporters in Warsaw, Poland, where he described the incident as a "vicious, calculated, despicable attack" and called for increased gun control regulations (shown below).

Search Interest

External References