Dallas, really bad criminal element or trigger happy cops?

[Al Bundy]

http://www.dallasnews.com/incoming/2...uth-dallas.ece




Police in riot gear had to control an angry crowd that formed near the scene of an officer-involved shooting that left a suspect dead in South Dallas late Tuesday afternoon.
Hundreds converged outside Dixon’s Grocery a block or two from where the dead man lay face down in a field. Witnesses said he was shot while running from police near the intersection of Dixon Avenue and Bourquin Street.
According to unofficial reports, police had received a report of a man being dragged into a house shortly before 5 p.m. Gunfire was exchanged when the first squad cars arrived.
Preliminary reports indicated that no officers were injured in the exchange of gunfire.
Police from throughout the city – some in riot gear – were called to the scene in South Dallas. The department's SWAT team arrived about 6:30 p.m.
Hours after the shooting, police had not identified the dead man, but some in the crowd said they knew who he was.
Sandra Harper said it was her son, James Harper, 31. She said he had sold marijuana out of a house in the neighborhood.
“I lost my son over a bag of damn weed,” Sandra Harper said. “I knew it was going to happen but I didn’t know when.”
She said her son was unarmed.
Sandra Harper and at least a dozen family members wailed and screamed at a line of SWAT officers carrying assault rifles.
When the police said nothing in return, Sandra Harper and her daughter walked crying up Dixon Street in search of the body. They only met more police.
The Rev. Kyev Tatum of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference issued a statement appealing for calm:
“The fair-minded people in South Dallas need to remain calm, peaceful and allow justice to take her course. We will make sure a full investigation is conducted and we are confident that Chief Brown and DA Watkins will seek truth in this case. Violence in the community is not the answer. As Dr. King once said, 'An eye for an eye leaves everybody blind.'”
A crowd that appeared to number in the hundreds gathered shortly after the shooting. Television reports indicated that some people were seen carrying guns.
At one point, at least one officer was seen firing what appeared to be pellets into the pavement in an effort to disperse the crowd.
Later, several fist fights broke out among onlookers. A woman was taken away in an ambulance.
The shooting appears to be the latest in a string of deadly encounters this year involving Dallas police officers and armed men.
It was the 14 shooting by Dallas police. Eight have been fatal. There were 18 shootings in 2010 and 17 in 2009.
By 7:30 p.m., dozens of SWAT officers were positioned at both ends of Dixon – two dozen at Barber Avenue and a dozen more at Bourquin.
Many onlookers were still in the area, but they had broken up into smaller groups.
Diana Maria Williams, who said she belongs to the Black Panthers, stood with others in front police at Barber and Dixon.
“They shot that boy in the back,” Williams said. “That could have been my kid. This isn’t Atlanta. This is Dallas, Texas.”
Freddy Smith, another Black Panther, screamed at the officers.
“I see a lot of white folks and no black folks,” he said of the SWAT unit.
Smith said he came out because police had tried to arrest his 82-year-old aunt near the shooting scene.
“I was up there standing up there over the body. And every one of them was laughing at the man, like they killed a deer or an animal,” he said.
Shautaha Tofsrend was with another crowd at the other end of the block.
“You all mean to tell me you can’t take down a man without shooting him?” Tofsrend said. “They got the whole damn SWAT team here.”
As a column of SWAT officers walked by, Mondray McCoy raised his hands, turned his back and said: “My hands are up with my back turned. Shoot me.”
A minute later, two Dallas sheriff’s deputies walked over and talked to McCoy and others. Pointing out that their pistols were holstered, they implored McCoy and his friends to help calm the crowd.