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Dallas is my city.
Today it is a crime scene.
I check with Google Maps before I leave my house to figure out how to get to the office. Twenty or so blocks are closed. My map is awash with red.
I cross the Trinity, still bright green from all of the rain, and head down Riverfront to the triple underpass. All traffic is diverted north on Houston, the western perimeter of the scene. The traffic lights are flashing red and yellow. Police cars randomly line Commerce and Main in zigzag diagonals, flashing red and blue. At the DART tracks I pass a single black officer standing beside his vehicle. Stopped at a flashing red light, I am crying. I try to make eye contact, to give him some sort of signal of support. Like what? A wave? A hand over my heart? But he is staring off into space.
Chief David Brown comes on the radio. I used to work with him. “We are heartbroken. There are no words to describe the atrocity that occurred to our city. All I know is this must stop. This divisiveness between our police and our citizens.” I cry more.“Dallas police officers and DART police officers are some of the bravest men and women you’d ever want to be associated with. You see video footage after video footage of them running toward gunfire, from an elevated position, with no chance to protect themselves. And to put themselves in harm’s way to make sure citizens can get to a place of security. So please join me in applauding these brave men and women who do this job under great scrutiny, under great vulnerability, who literally risk their lives to protect our democracy. We don’t feel much support most days. Let’s not make today most days.”
Today is not most days.
