"Our Country Is Better Than That": Two Responses to Tragedy

"We are hurting," David Brown, the chief of the Dallas Police Department, said at the beginning of a press conference on Friday morning. The Dallas officers are hurting. There are no words to describe the atrocity that occurred to our city. All I know is that this must stop--this divisiveness between our police and our citizens." Brown is an African-American in his mid-fifties. He was born and raised in Dallas, which, like many American cities, is highly segregated along racial and income lines. Brown joined the department and made his way up the ranks. According to a profile that appeared in the Dallas Morning News in 2010, when he was appointed a chief of the department, Brown had a reputation as a "tough and demanding leader." In his nearly six years running the department, which had a reputation for overly aggressive, and sometimes deadly, policing, Brown has proved to be a reformer, firing rogue cops for poor behavior, and making sure all officers got extra training in when to use lethal force. In a 2014 article about Brown's reform efforts, Radley Balko, a Washington Post blogger who has written a book about the militarization of America's police forces, commented, "One could quibble with the battles Brown has chosen, but he at least seems to be fighting on the right side." In the past few years, the number of shootings involving the Dallas police has fallen significantly. After making his opening appeal for unity and reconciliation, Brown delivered an update on the investigation into the sniper attack on Thursday evening, which took place during a protest against police violence, leaving five police officers dead and seven wounded. Brown said the alleged shooter, whom he didn't name, had told officers who cornered him, in a parking garage, that he wanted to kill white police officers, that he acted alone and wasn't affiliated with any groups, and that, after negotiations for a peaceful surrender broke down, the police killed him by using a robot to place a bomb in his vicinity and detonating it. Inevitably, these details dominated the headlines. But, at a time of heightened tension and widespread fear of further violence, some other things Brown said deserved noting. After saluting the actions of the Dallas police officers who rushed toward the gunfire, which appeared to come from a rooftop, he addressed the public, saying, "We don't feel much support most days.