Officers Murdered Across U.S. in Wave of Extremist Violence
A nation roiled by a vicious and protracted presidential campaign and shocked and saddened by graphic evidence of the deaths of multiple unarmed black men at the hands of police officers, woke on July 8 to the nightmarish news that a sniper had assassinated five Dallas police officers who were providing security at an otherwise peaceful Black Lives Matter protest.
Six other individuals were wounded in the shooting, and the shooter, 25-year-old Micah Johnson of Mesquite, Texas, was killed by a police robot in the early hours of that summer day.
Johnson was an Army veteran and black nationalist sympathizer who reportedly told police that 鈥渉e was upset about the recent police shootings鈥� and 鈥渨anted to kill white people, especially white officers.鈥� After being discharged while under investigation for sexual harrassment, he gravitated toward black nationalist hate groups including the racist, anti-Semitic New Black Panther Party, the Nation of Islam, and the Black Riders Liberation Party.
Extremists wasted no time in co-opting Johnson鈥檚 act of domestic terrorism for their own purposes. A handful of black nationalists endorsed Johnson鈥檚 actions. Black Riders Liberation Party leader Lakesia Washington posted an 鈥淩.I.P.鈥� message for Johnson on the group鈥檚 Facebook page, where another member called him the 鈥淣at Turner of Our Time.鈥�
On the other side of the racial extremist spectrum, Matt Parrott, co-founder of the Traditionalist Youth Network and Traditionalist Worker Party 鈥� racist white groups that were involved in a bloody fight during a protest in Sacramento, Calif., that left several stabbed and wounded 鈥� predicted 鈥渞ace war.鈥� And so did numerous posters on racist online bulletin boards like Stormfront.
Right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Joes claimed that progressive philanthropist George Soros had engineered the shootings to provoke a race war. Arch-Islamophobe David Horowitz claimed that Johnson was 鈥渋n effect鈥� acting as the 鈥渕ilitary wing鈥� of the Black Lives Matter movement, and demanded that the latter be declared a domestic terrorist organization. Stewart Rhodes of the radical antigovernment Oath Keepers called on his group to 鈥渦nite and coordinate in mutual defense against this orchestrated campaign of Marxist terrorism.鈥�
While extremists bloviated, real and threatened attacks on police across the country continued. In Tennessee on July 8, one woman was killed and three others, including a police officer, were wounded by a black Army veteran who reportedly explained his indiscriminate shooting attack by saying he was angry about police violence against black Americans. Officers in Missouri and Georgia were wounded by gunfire the next day, though the shooters鈥� motives were unclear.
A few days later in Detroit, four black men, including one who called Johnson a 鈥渉ero鈥� and another who wrote, 鈥淚t鈥檚 time to wage war and shoot the police first,鈥� were arrested for allegedly threatening on Facebook to kill police.
And on July 17, 29-year-old Gavin Eugene Long, a black man from Kansas City who in 2015 filed documents declaring himself an antigovernment 鈥渟overeign citizen,鈥� shot and killed three Baton Rouge police officers and wounded three others.
As the anti-police attacks and threats continued sporadically throughout the fall, with incidents in Massachusetts, Colorado, Maryland, Alabama and elsewhere, police and pundits struggled to make sense of the violence and chart a path forward. Some departments spoke of falling back on military training, while others planned to have officers work in pairs at all times. Dallas police chief David Brown, a black man who rose to national prominence in the wake of Johnson鈥檚 attack, retired in October but urged aspiring police officers, especially people of color, not to 鈥渜uit on me鈥� and to 鈥淸f]inish what you鈥檝e started.鈥�
