At least twelve Dallas law enforcement officers and two bystanders were shot, leaving five dead, during a 7 July 2016 protest against police violence in downtown Dallas. Police say they have three suspects in custody, and another is dead after lengthy negotiations and a standoff with law enforcement.
Witnesses captured footage and audio of the shots:
I am so scared. pic.twitter.com/jw88QnKGXG
— Allison (@allisongriz) July 8, 2016
According to local news outlets, the protests were peaceful for much of the day:
Clarissa Myles was eating at McDonald when the chaos began. “Everyone was screaming, people were running… I saw at least probably 30 shots go off,” she said.
Myles also said she saw two men who were “super upset” with police right before shots rang out. She was shocked that the peaceful protest could take such a sinister turn so quickly.
Several of the shooting victims were apparently Dallas Area Rapid Transit officers; DART service has been suspended until further notice. Witnesses told reporters that they heard at least 20 gunshots in rapid succession:
Carlos Harris, who lives downtown said the shooters "were strategic. It was tap tap pause. Tap tap pause."
Harris, who said he was in the military, said he heard someone fire back with an AR-15.
Before the shots were fired, the demonstration was peacefully walking down Main Street.
One man was mistakenly named as a "suspect" or a "person of interest" in the shootings early in the evening:
However, Mark Hughes turned himself in and was released from custody a few hours later:
Cory Hughes says his brother, who had been walking around with a rifle, didn’t shoot anyone.
Shortly after doing a live interview with CBS11, Cory Hughes went over to talk to Dallas Police and not long after that, Mark Hughes turned himself in.
One of the shooting suspects has been identified as Micah Xavier Johnson, 25, a U.S. Army veteran who told negotiators he wanted to kill police.
There were rallies and marches across the nation throughout the day in response to the deaths of Alton Sterling (who was shot by police officers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana) and Philando Castile (who was shot by a police officer in Falcon Heights, Minnesota). The men, who were both black, were shot within a 48-hour period, and witnesses captured footage of each with cell phones.