With tears and hugs and candles and smiles, they came to remember. To honor. To vow that despite a vicious punch, this city and its police department will rise again, stronger and more committed than ever.
More than a thousand people gathered outsideDallas City Hall on a sweltering Monday night to remember the five police officers killed Thursday by a man who said he was deliberately targeting white cops. Officers from across Texas made the drive, pouring in from Austin and San Antonio and Mesquite to honor their fallen brothers and promise they would use their deaths to fuel their desire to be better officers themselves.
Each fallen officer’s name was read aloud: Patricio Zamarripa. Brent Thompson. Michael Krol. Lorne Ahrens. Michael Smith.
“It has knocked the breath out of us,” said senior Cpl. Marcella St. John, Smith’s partner, who cautioned against letting sadness turn to hate and anger. “We (must) take our anger and anguish and direct it toward something good.”
Dallas Police Chief David Brown, compared the fallen officers to superheroes — men to whom society could look up as examples of how to live an honorable life. Brown has vowed to use the attention brought by the tragedy to press for changes at helping young black men trust the police officers who serve them. Brown, who is black, earlier in the day called for Black Lives Matter protesters to get off the sidelines and join his department as officers, where they’d be assigned to patrol their neighborhoods and build trust.
READ MORE: Dallas police deaths "touched the soul of a nation" says VP Biden as US nation looks in mirror
After the vigil, police officers stayed busy shaking hands and receiving hugs. Strangers thanked them for their service, for the sacrifices made by the colleagues.
“We just wanted to be part of the unity, to show that we can all come together,” said Judy Mendoza as she stood with a flickering candle.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article