7/7 Dallas Shooting

[Rory]

This is an idea that should probably be spun out into its own discussion. Reading the comments on JMG's Archdruid Report. He came out with this chilling statement:

A nonfictional insurgency would start by ambushing policemen and staging large and occasionally violent protests, in order to get the authorities to overreact and impose draconian measures that would alienate more of the insurgents' potential supporters.

[Cordelia]

^^
Where more fitting a launch pad than Dallas?

[Cordelia]

"Burnt Hill » Thu Jul 21, 2016 1:03 pm

The perp was actively attempting to kill them.
The request for a new cell gave them the opportunity to negotiate the "brick" corner safely with their new toy robot,
and blast him to death, a fitting fate for an active murderer.

But, if Johnson was ready to negotiate a surrender, delivering him a bomb (sure death) under the pretense of a phone, (possible communication) was decided in advance, making sure he, along with his story, would be buried in the rubble. Another fait accompli, accepted by most people. And a continuation of the insanity people now accept as normal and judicious in this increasingly spinning out-of-control world.

Who would have thought, a robotic Jack Ruby.

[Burnt Hill]

"Burnt Hill » Thu Jul 21, 2016 1:03 pm

The perp was actively attempting to kill them.
The request for a new cell gave them the opportunity to negotiate the "brick" corner safely with their new toy robot,
and blast him to death, a fitting fate for an active murderer.

But, if Johnson was ready to negotiate a surrender, delivering him a bomb (sure death) under the pretense of a phone, (possible communication) was decided in advance, making sure he, along with his story, would be buried in the rubble. Another fait accompli, accepted by most people. And a continuation of the insanity people now accept as normal and judicious in this increasingly spinning out-of-control world.

Who would have thought, a robotic Jack Ruby.

Certainly a possibility.
How do you mean "decided in advance" though?
Before the shootings, or after he was cornered?
Are there other ways you find the "negotiation" part questionable?
What's your gut feeling about Chief Brown?

Dallas police used a robot to kill. What does that mean for the future of police robots?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/dallas-police-used-a-robot-to-kill-what-does-that-mean-for-the-future-of-police-robots/2016/07/20/32ee114e-4a84-11e6-bdb9-701687974517_story.html

Brown has said officials came up with the plan to use the explosives against Johnson, who was holed up in a school, after verbal negotiations failed. The chief said Johnson “had delusions and was committed to killing officers.”

The chief said he told his team, “don’t bring the building down, but that was the extent of my guidance.”

“This was not an ethical dilemma. I would do it again,” Brown said of using lethal force, adding: “I would use any tool necessary to save our officers’ lives.”

[Elihu]

How do you mean "decided in advance" though?
Before the shootings, or after he was cornered?
Are there other ways you find the "negotiation" part questionable?
What's your gut feeling about Chief Brown?

you are trying to get us into the corner aren't you? are you a novelist?

[Burnt Hill]

How do you mean "decided in advance" though?
Before the shootings, or after he was cornered?
Are there other ways you find the "negotiation" part questionable?
What's your gut feeling about Chief Brown?

you are trying to get us into the corner aren't you? are you a novelist?

No, sorry, and no!
I do interview people everyday in my work though.
Didn't mean to sound like an interrogator either.
Its just a method to find explanations for situations.

[Cordelia]

How do you mean "decided in advance" though?
Before the shootings, or after he was cornered?
Are there other ways you find the "negotiation" part questionable?
What's your gut feeling about Chief Brown?

you are trying to get us into the corner aren't you? are you a novelist?

No, sorry, and no!
I do interview people everyday in my work though.
Didn't mean to sound like an interrogator either.
Its just a method to find explanations for situations.

Burnt Hill would need to write more purple prose for today's market.

Having never been to Dallas and knowing nothing more than anyone else following this event in the 'news' media (written, and re-written according to hindsight), anything I think is guesswork, based on past experience. 'Decided in advance' is up for grabs; the narratives are so murky and change so often, anything is possible. I don't believe much, if any, of what is re-written and think that what's first reported is important to remember.

I don't know if Brown's personal tragedy has been posted here (I was going to awhile back but got lost in the brawl).My 'gut' reaction to Chief Brown is that he's a sincere but malleable cog, at the behest of the Mayor, who gets his directives from those somewhere above himself. Malleable, because Brown himself has been personally traumatized by his own son's bi-polar mental illness, when, on Father's Day, 2010, David Brown, Jr. "...fatally shot a civilian and a police officer from the nearby Lancaster Police department, and then was killed by cops who responded to the scene, CNN reported. Brown had been sworn in as the Dallas police chief just weeks before."
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.2705315

Not 'just' his son........

Dallas Police Chief David Brown lost his son, former partner and brother to violence

"Few people understand loss better than David Brown, the Dallas police chief who stood before television cameras Friday morning and said, “We are heartbroken.”

Even before five police officers were killed Thursday at the site of a Black Lives Matter protest where seven other people were wounded, Brown had become all-too familiar with grief, pummeled by it again and again in his career and personal life."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/da ... story.html

According to the Post article, Brown's son was shot a dozen times by police. If he really was in charge, is this someone who could be expected to make rapid, rational, impartial decisions, for the police department, to kill a 'delusional' young man, like his son, responsible for killing police (like his son)?

But then, how many officers on any police force haven't experienced personal losses and violence that would naturally impact their judgment when under stress?

[Burnt Hill]

Thanks for your reply Cordelia!

Chief Brown. Interesting character for sure. Originally felt he was a pretty straight shooter and gave him the benefit of a doubt.
Then his history came out and I thought he was about to be revealed as a player in the actual shootings of the LEOs.
WRex mentioned his FBI link, haven't explored that yet. Right now he remains suspect, in my mind anyway.

Yes to taking initial immediate reports importantly, while remembering how poorly witnesses interpret traumatic events.
IAM was on a smart trajectory in regards to the potential of the involvement of snipers. I am sure he will be back.

I was thinking Dallas was just a lucky coincidence in so far as location. If you cared to expand on that, I am listening.

[Cordelia]

Thanks for your reply Cordelia!

Chief Brown. Interesting character for sure. Originally felt he was a pretty straight shooter and gave him the benefit of a doubt.
Then his history came out and I thought he was about to be revealed as a player in the actual shootings of the LEOs.
WRex mentioned his FBI link, haven't explored that yet. Right now he remains suspect, in my mind anyway.

Yes to taking initial immediate reports importantly, while remembering how poorly witnesses interpret traumatic events.
IAM was on a smart trajectory in regards to the potential of the involvement of snipers. I am sure he will be back.

I was thinking Dallas was just a lucky coincidence in so far as location. If you cared to expand on that, I am listening.

Something of this timing and magnitude defies coincidence, imo. Like others on this board I also think numerology and dates are significant. 11/22/63 Dallas ushered in another Johnson who then brought the escalation of the Vietnam war while simultaneously pushing to pass the Civil Rights Act (avoiding civil war in the US?).

Also, I had a stronger reaction to this recent event, more so than the continual string of shootings, based largely on my own memories of racial violence and turmoil in the 1960's. The murders of civil rights workers, church bombings, riots, JFK's murder, and then Vietnam were the defining moments of how brutal and unstable 'The Great Society' was at a time when I was becoming cognizant of a world outside of my own.

I read this WaPo article with usual skepticism (I think more & more that's it's very significant the manner in which Chief Brown lost his own 'delusional' son). Maybe Dallas 2016 is the event to usher in RoboCops. To quote Buffalo Springfield's FWIW... "There's something happening here/What it is ain't exactly clear"

Dallas police used a robot to kill. What does that mean for the future of police robots?

"Using a pair of thumb-controlled joysticks, a Dallas police officer guided a robot loaded with a pound of C-4 plastic explosive toward cop-killer Micah Xavier Johnson and blew him up.

"The unprecedented decision to remotely blast Johnson, who had killed five officers in one of the worst ambushes against U.S. law enforcement in modern history, was widely praised as an innovative way to eliminate a threat without risking more officers’ lives. Police said they came up with the deadly plan in less than 20 minutes, after Johnson said that “the end was coming” and negotiations with him broke down."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national ... story.html

(Growing up in close proximity to 'old fashioned' journalism and to the political machinations of Washington during that era, I'm interested in seeing HBOs 'All the Way' (with LBJ). It's a new Spielberg production so it's sure to be an entertaining white-wash; maybe also providing, for balance, some revelations into Johnson's ruthlessness. Or maybe it won't be entertaining and just a waste of time.)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLwSeF35jfo


LBJ abusing his dogs



LBJ the warmonger & exhibitionist

[Cordelia]

The call to enlist:

Applications For Police Jobs Surge In The Wake Of Dallas Police Shootings

Police Chief David Brown suggested those critical of law enforcement apply for law enforcement jobs, and many have heeded the call.

DALLAS, TX — In a note of unity after the tragic shooting of police in Dallas earlier this month, the city's police chief offered those critical of police a novel alternative to protesting: Apply for a law enforcement job.

"We're hiring," Dallas Police Chief David Brown said during a post-ambush news conference during which he was palpably reflective. "Get off that protest line and put in an application. We'll put you in your neighborhood and help you resolve some of those problems.".........

..........."All told, there has been a 344 percent increase in applications submitted since the tragedy that claimed the lives of five Dallas police officers, according to the DPD statistics. In an added note, police said, "applications are steadily flowing in daily" since the shooting."

http://patch.com/texas/downtownaustin/a ... -shootings

[stickdog99]

The video at the top of this CNN article raises many more questions than it purports to answer.

[stickdog99]

What?

[stickdog99]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nati ... story.html

Johnson eventually shot his way inside through an entrance on the other side of campus and left a trail of blood leading to a stairwell, Hannigan said. He fired back at officers who followed him into the stairwell and headed to the campus library. He found a window, shot it out and fired down at officers on the street.

Johnson stayed on the move, Hannigan said. He wound his way back around to the other side of the building and about 10 or 11 p.m. ducked inside the doors of the same hallway where the standoff ensued.

"He knew we were coming after him. He knew not to stay in one place for too long," Hannigan said. Asked why he hunkered down in the hallway, Hannigan said, "I don't know if it was intentional that he barricaded himself in that zone or if it was an accident."

What?

[stickdog99]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/23/us/as ... .html?_r=0

DALLAS — Officer Patrick Zamarripa was down.

A peaceful march here had turned grisly, and a gunman’s rampage wrapped darkening downtown streets in panic, noise and the stench of gun smoke. Officer Jorge Barrientos rushed to his friend’s side and tried to seal a sucking chest wound with the only cover he could find: the plastic wrapping off a pack of cigarettes.

What?

After the gunfire began in Dallas on July 7, officers loaded a wounded mother of four into a shot-up cruiser with flattened tires and sped to a hospital.

What?

Other mass shootings have been far deadlier than the one here that killed five officers. But few lasted longer. The gunman — Micah Johnson, 25 — lay siege for up to six hours, from the time gunshots were first reported at 8:58 p.m. until early Friday, when the authorities detonated a pound of C-4, killing him.

But not even that lethal explosion seemed to stop him, according to a member of law enforcement at the scene. As his body lay amid the rubble, Mr. Johnson’s finger remained on the trigger of his AK-74 rifle. The weapon fired additional bullets.

What?

The drama was unfolding in real-time on social media and on television, heightening the tension and confusion. In the minutes after the shooting, one of the first calls Mr. Jenkins received was from a White House official, asking what he knew about what was happening.

...

Ms. Taylor prayed aloud, and four officers surrounded them, she said, shielding them from the violence. One officer rubbed her back amid the chaos. “We’re going to get you out of here, Mom,” Ms. Taylor recalled him saying. “It was like whatever was going to happen to me was going to happen to him first.”

The officers hoisted her into the back seat of a squad car, where an officer and her son cradled her as they drove to the hospital for surgery. She learned later that the squad car that was her ambulance came on its rims, its tires shot out by bullets, and that her other boys had sought refuge where they could: behind a pillar, at a hotel, in a stranger’s apartment.

Umm. OK.

The killer prowled the sidewalks in body armor and tan pants. He moved stealthily, using the wide columns of El Centro College as cover. The police initially said he shot at officers from inside a parking garage. But investigators, Mr. Rawlings said, now believe Mr. Johnson opened fire only at street-level and from a second-floor window of El Centro.

Ummm. OK.

The chief had more grim news by midnight: The death toll had increased to four officers. But he said that the person of interest had surrendered, and that other people were being questioned in connection with the attack, including a man carrying a camouflage bag who had quickly left the area in a black Mercedes.

At City Hall, the talk of logistics paused for a quiet interruption. Someone from the Dallas Fire-Rescue Department passed out mourning badges: black plastic bars to clip onto their badges.

Senior Cpl. Lorne Ahrens, known to his buddies simply as “Meat,” was a hulking officer recognized for his work on a drug squad. Corporal Castro, who had been part of the unit, recalled one summer night when the two officers crawled into some bushes before a raid. Corporal Castro whispered to his friend not to leave his side. Corporal Ahrens grabbed him by the shoulder.

Around 12:30 a.m., Mr. Rawlings and Chief Brown addressed reporters. The narrative had changed. The gunman was holed up at El Centro, and the police had been negotiating with him for about 45 minutes. The man and the officers continued to trade gunfire, and he had told the police “that the end is coming, and he’s going to hurt and kill more of us, meaning law enforcement, and that there are bombs all over the place,” the chief said.

The police still believed Mr. Johnson had accomplices. People who had been detained, the chief said, were not cooperating. He talked of “waiting for the suspects to break.”

What?

“There’s always going to be a lack of clarity early on in an emergency response,” said Mr. Jenkins, the Dallas County official. “But tornadoes are not evil. They’re not trying to confuse you. A tornado whips through and it’s gone in minutes, and this guy is still shooting and telling us information that turns out not to be true.”

What?

Around the time of the news conference, the chief briefed officials about his plan to end the standoff. The authorities had developed an idea to attach C-4 to the remote-controlled robot and detonate it. “He wasn’t asking for our opinion necessarily,” Mr. Jenkins said, recounting when the chief told him and the mayor of the plan. “Both of us had words of affirmation that we supported that.”