DALLAS, July 10, (APP/AFP) – Dallas was gripped by a
new security scare Saturday triggered by an anonymous threat in
the Texas city, on edge days after a gunman fatally ambushed
five police officers during a peaceful protest.
SWAT teams deployed around the Dallas Police
Department headquarters while officers investigated reports of
a suspicious person in a parking garage — finally giving
the all-clear around two hours later.
Police took “precautionary” security measures across the
city after receiving “an anonymous threat against law
enforcement,” the Dallas police said in a statement.
The scare came as another night of marches against
police brutality was underway in several US cities, a
groundswell of protest that shows little sign of abating.
Protesters led by the Black Lives Matter movement
are demanding justice for two African-Americans shot dead by
police this week — their dying moments captured in viral
video footage that stunned the nation.
At the Dallas protest late Thursday, a 25-year-old black
army veteran named Micah Johnson used a rifle to shoot dead
five police officers in a sniper attack. Seven other cops were
wounded, as well as two civilians.
Johnson told negotiators before police killed him that he
wanted to murder white cops in revenge for the
black deaths.
Dallas officials believe he was the lone shooter in
the incident.
Police across the country were on edge as it emerged
that officers had been targeted in at least two incidents —
in Tennessee and Wisconsin — by individuals apparently angered
at the recent fatal shootings of black men by police.
– Angry marches continue –
==========================
Hundreds of people marched peacefully Saturday in New York
for a third consecutive night, holding up banners bearing the
names of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, the two men whose
deaths, in Louisiana and Minnesota,
triggered the latest protests.
In St. Paul, where Castile was killed, several
hundred protesters blocked a highway intersection for about three
hours and hurled rocks and bottles at police, who were
equipped with helmets, clubs and gas masks.
The officers used smoke grenades, pepper spray and tear gas
to break up the crowd, and around midnight arrested protesters
who refused to move.
In San Francisco, a large force of police swooped in
to prevent protesters, who marched for a second day, from blocking
a major road intersection.
Hundreds also marched in Los Angeles, including in South
Central, the epicenter of violent 1992 riots following the
acquittal of white police officers in the videotaped beating
of black motorist Rodney King.
There were nasty scenes late Friday in Phoenix, Arizona,
where police used pepper spray to disperse stone-throwing
protesters. And in Rochester, New York, 74 people were arrested
over a sit-in protest.
But elsewhere — from Atlanta to Houston, Chicago,
New Orleans, Boston, Detroit and Baltimore — weekend protests
over the fatal shootings have passed off with little trouble.
– ‘Demented’ gunman –
=====================
President Barack Obama tried Saturday to reassure a
shocked country, insisting that the United States can overcome
its racial divisions, and rejecting comparisons with the civil
unrest of the 1960s.
Obama, scheduled to visit Dallas next week, described the gunman
as a “demented individual” who in no way represented
the African-American community.
“I firmly believe that America is not as divided as
some have suggested,” he said during a NATO summit in Warsaw.
“There is sorrow, there is anger, there is confusion… but
there is unity.”
US politicians have sought to appear as unifiers after the
week of violence. “White Americans need to do a better job
of listening when African Americans talk about the barriers
they face,” Democratic White House hopeful Hillary Clinton tweeted.
That message was echoed by prominent members of the
Republican Party, which has often jumped to defend law
enforcement amid accusations of racial bias.
“It is more dangerous to be black in America,” said Newt
Gingrich, a Republican former House speaker tipped as a
possible White House running mate for Donald Trump.
“Sometimes it’s difficult for whites to appreciate how real
that is. It’s an
everyday danger.”
There has been a huge surge of sympathy for Dallas police
after what marked the single biggest loss of life for US
law enforcement since the September 11, 2001 terror attacks.
Although the White House has ruled out any link between
Johnson and known “terrorist organizations,” his Facebook page ties
him to radical black movements listed as hate groups.
Police found bomb-making materials and a weapons cache
at Johnson’s home and were scouring his journal and social media
posts to understand what drove him to mass murder.