(Newswire.net — July 8, 2016) — DALLAS (AP) — At least two snipers opened fire on police officers during protests in Dallas on Thursday night, killing four officers and injuring seven others, Dallas Police Chief David Brown told reporters, the AP reports.
Brown told reporters that the snipers set up an ambush, and opened fire at officers around 8:45 p.m. Thursday. Eleven officers were shot down, three were left dead on the scene, and the fourth died later in hospital, the Police tweeted.
The gunfire broke out while hundreds of people were gathered to protest fatal police shootings this week in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and suburban St. Paul, Minnesota, the AP reports.
The Dallas police tweeted pictures of peaceful protesters taking selfies with police officers on the street, minutes before the shooting.
Video footage from the scene showed a peaceful “Black Lives Matter” march along a downtown street. Then gunfire was heard and people started running, searching for shelter, not knowing the direction from which shooters opened fire.
According to Carlos Harris, who lives downtown, the shooters “were strategic. It was tap tap pause. Tap tap pause.”
“Everyone just started running,” Devante Odom, 21, told The Dallas Morning News. “We lost touch with two of our friends just trying to get out of there.”
A Minnesota officer on Wednesday fatally shot Philando Castile while he was in a car with a woman and a child in a St. Paul suburb. According to his parents, Castile had a permit to carry a gun, but he was peaceful caring father and husband who was shot just because he was black.
Although widely shared, the livestream of the shooting outraged people who condemned the creators of the video. Unlike bystanders, who happen to be at the right place to spontaneously record a video, this particular video has been made by a group that listens to the police frequency and chases events to livestream them, purely motivated by profit.
The mother of the victim, however, later expressed gratitude to the streamers because thanks to them she knew how her son died.
A day earlier in Louisiana, an African American was pinned to the pavement by two white cops and shot while lying on the ground. The incident was captured on video and widely shared on social networks.