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Updated 2.12pm
https://www.facebook.com/Channel4News/videos/10153875206241939/
SNIPERS SHOT DEAD five police officers and injured up to a dozen others in Dallas overnight, leaving the city “heartbroken”, its police chief has said.
At a press conference this afternoon, police chief David Brown said:
We’re hurting. Our profession is hurting, Dallas officers are hurting. We are heartbroken.
All I know is, this must stop, this divisiveness between our police and our citizens
The shootings, which the police called a “terrorist incident”, took place as people gathered to protest two shootings of black men by police officers which yet again shone the spotlight on the treatment of people of colour by law enforcement in the US.
The shooting began as the rally was winding up at about 9pm local time last night.
A suspect, who has since been killed by police, has been named as Michah Xavier Johnson.
At this afternoon’s press conference, officials said that the shooter told police he wanted to “kill officers” and “kill white people especially white officers”.
Police have also said that Johnson told them that he was not affiliated to any organisation.
Police had put the city on lockdown after Johnson warned that bombs had been planted throughout the city centre. Sweeps found no explosives, police said.
https://www.facebook.com/ErrolCBS/videos/10157138306805788/
Johnson (25) lived in the Dallas suburb of Mesquite, CBS News and NBC News reported. He was killed in a tense showdown with police after the shootings, which also left two civilians wounded.
Local media identified one of the civilians as Shetamia Taylor, 37, saying she was shot in the leg while attending the protest with her four sons.
After a protracted standoff during which police traded fire with Johnson at a downtown garage, he was killed by a police bomb robot.
Johnson was killed by the robot after negotiations broke down.
Three other suspects remain in custody.
President Barack Obama denounced the shootings as “a vicious, despicable and calculated attack on law enforcement”. He was speaking during a press conference at a NATO summit in Warsaw.
He added:
Let’s be clear. There is no possible justification for these kinds of attacks or any violence against law enforcement.
The incident was the biggest single loss of life for law enforcement in America since the September 11, 2001 attacks, and could further strain already tense race relations in the country.
Video captured at the scene (click here if you can’t see it) shows the building where the shootings were taking place:
The event in Dallas was a Black Lives Matter rally organised in protest against the killings.
A man turned himself into the police after the authorities tweeted a picture of him wearing camouflage and an assault rifle slung across his shoulder, with a call for information on his whereabouts.
It is legal for those with permits to openly carry weapons in the state of Texas. The man, named as Mark Hughes, was later released.
In a press conference this morning, the Dallas Chief of Police David Brown said there was a standoff with snipers who had fired on police from a second-floor garage.
One witness at the rally told CNN it was “complete pandemonium”.
“There was blacks, whites, latinos, everybody. There was a mixed community here protesting. And this just came out of nowhere,” Cory Hughes, a brother of the man who turned himself in and was cleared, said.
I’m still kind of startled, shaken up. As you know being in the front, it’s almost like the gunshots were coming at us. It was complete pandemonium… It’s bananas.
A woman who was in the vicinity of the garage was arrested.
Police believe there were four people working together in a triangulated area from elevated positions, culminating in the shooting at the protest. It is yet to be determined if the shooters were part of the rally or separate to it.
They are “leaving every motive on the table” said the police chief.
Police had been monitoring social media, and police had not made connections yet between postings on Facebook and other sites to the shooters.
“It is a heartbreaking morning,” said the Dallas mayor Mike Rawlings.
Two suspects with camouflaged bags were also stopped by police and are now in police custody and being interviewed.
The suspect which has been exchanging fire with police told negotiations that “the end is coming” and that he was coming to get them.
He said that there are “bombs all over the place in garage and downtown”, adding:
…so we are being very careful in our tactics so we don’t injure or put any of our citizens in harms way… as we negotiate further.
“We still don’t have a complete comfort level that we have all the suspects so we will continue a very, very rigorous investigation and search of downtown,” said Brown.
The Mayor said that the White House and Governor’s office offered help.
“I’ve never been more proud of a police officer and being a part of this great noble profession seeing the courage, the professionalism and just the grit to stay on scene in an area looking for suspects knowing that we are vulnerable,” said the chief of police.
We continue to fight the good fight to bring this to a conclusion but it is still a very tenuous situation.
Source: LM Otero
Witnesses reported hearing dozens of gunshots that sounded like semi-automatic rifle fire. "The shots were coming from the roof," a protester told KTVT television, a CBS affiliate.
- Additional reporting Aoife Barry and Rónán Duffy
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The lowest common denominator of society listen to and comment on that show. It’s a skangers forum with no value whatsoever.
It’s well reported that FM104 have employees call in and bait other callers to bring out the worst in people.
@David Mac Shite: I wonder if you used the term skangers on his show would someone complain?
Skangers arnt a vulnerable group they’re the predators and leeches never the victims
..and no I don’t mean working class people. I mean skangers. We all know the difference
@Mr Snuffleupagus: I wonder do online ‘news’ sites have employees comment and bait other commenters to bring out the worst in people.
Don’t they all. You can predict who’ll be on 4fm, 98fm and fm104 talk shows – you can count on one hand ‘new’ callers.
If you point this out you get “there’s a button on the side!”
The researchers on fm104 only let you on if you imply you’ll come out with stupidity. Seriously ring them yourself and try bring studies and statistics on they’ll hang up, bring a divisive attitude and you’ll be on in no time! Tabloid radio
Probably some one from FM104 for publicity . Sure aren’t we all talking about it now .
I’m with FM104 on this. People will say stupid things in these shows if the presenter and other callers challenged them I can’t see why Fam104 are responsible
This show is for trailer trash. It gives the uneducated dregs of society air time and makes Chris Barry feel like some sort of intellectual – Of course it’s all relative in relation to that.
@Barry Davidson: I think you’ve answered yourself, Barry. Because the presenter, i.e. an employee and the public representative of 104, allowed the comments to go unchallenged. Hence FM104′s responsibility.
It’s like complaining about a fight breaking out on Jerry Springer.
Its quite obvious that the caller to the show is pure ignorant of being someone that has ever had the privilege of interacting with a person who happened to be born through no fault of their with a special need or who happened to have an accident or illness of some kind that over night became disabled. I happen to be the mother of a child with special needs and know first hand the challenges of life a child or adult have to go through everyday, I am blessed and extremely privileged to help my child grow to the best he can ever be in his life with manners even though he is almost none verbal brought up to respect all. I can assure you that person on the radio is extremely challenged and not quite alright in the head, but one day he may face the challenges of a person with a special need maybe he might be introduced to a child, grandchild parent with dementia or maybe he might be the person that indeed needs the help through old age or some other karma, so people like him will have their day. He also sounds very uneducated and miserable in he own ignorance I do feel sorry for people like that as they miss out on so much in society when one can’t see through ignorance then one is truly blind.
The restrictions to public broadcasting are ridiculous in this country. Even idiots have free speech and if a private company wants to allow one of them to air their idiotic views so they can be challenged then they should be allowed to. How is censoring such conversions going to help educate anyone who holds such beliefs.
@Awkward Seal: I agree to a point. I’d like to see us adopt a first amendment approach.
@Awkward Seal: I think one of the main issues was not challenging the speaker and their outrageously ignorant remarks
Why do people think we have freedom of speech? That is an American thing which most of Europe doesn’t have. You can not incite hatred for a very good reason and the US has a problem with nut jobs and freedom of speech. Europe learned from having Nazis.
We should have freedom of speech. There are obvious limits on it but offence shouldn’t be one of them. I haven’t listened to the program (I’d rather pour superglue in my ears than listen to fm104) but I’m lead to believe that the ideas expressed were called stupid and offensive.
Did the person who made the complaint realise what show they were on? Was it their first time ever listening? If people can’t see that these shows are the Jeremy Kyle of the Irish radio waves, then they have other problems besides their indignation and horror. A bunch of skangers blowing off steam every night can hardly be taken seriously. If you don’t know the definition of Skanger, see
Oh the humanity!!
Or lack thereof
I like this show, but plenty of low lifes are calling in. Chris is always very good though. Another day some guy had a beef with ticket controllers that are usually of different skin colour as he described. He was ranting he’s been hassled by them and his teenage son like 50 or more times. Man was raging there. I’ve never been hassled, not even once by them and I’ve been using public transport for years. Maybe because in contrast to that caller… I pay for my fares? How dare some foreign person demanded from him to have a valid ticket lol… People of that sort are sadly calling in all the time, good for some laugh though… cant win with stupid.
Some people can get away with saying anything, whilst others have to be as careful as they would be when walking on eggshells.
Just look at the hullabaloo when Panti said that David Squint, Breeder O’Lyin’, Patricia Crazy and John Slobbers at the Iona “institute” were homophobic – which is about as inaccurate as saying the Pope is a Catholic – and those religious whack jobs trousered the guts of 100 grand without the matter even needing to go to court.
Does it really matter what some eejit says when he or she gets on the radio for a minute or two? Does anyone take such fools seriously? The same people would never dare to use insulting terms to handicapped people to their faces and they might be more careful what they say on radio as well if their identities were verified before they were allowed to speak on air. If anyone makes a disgraceful remark about “mongoes”, for example, just make sure the presenter then says: “well Joe Soap of Coote Street, Portlaoise, that’s your opinion, but I can’t say I admire you for it.”
@David Quim: I think you’re last sentence sums up the issue, the complaint was upheld as the BAI felt, that the presenter didn’t challenge the comments in an appropriate enough manner.
It not one of our best radio stations, and they let that Person rubbish these Children for what, because he hated them Barry should have seen where this was going and nipped in the but.
Before it so far.
* bud *
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