Thursday night’s attack on white police in Dallas was the worst of five shooting attacks over the course of two days. In three other states, attacks took place hours before Dallas, later that night and the next day.
TENNESSEE
At 2 a.m. Thursday morning in Bristol, Tennessee, a man named Lakeem Scott allegedly fired though a Days Inn window at vehicles on the nearby parkway, killing one person. Scott then fired on officers who came to the scene. Scott was wounded by police gunfire and arrested.
“Preliminarily, the investigation reveals Scott may have targeted individuals and officers after being troubled by recent incidents involving African-Americans and law enforcement officers in other parts of the country,” reported the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.
According to CNN, a police report also described witnesses as saying they had heard Scott shouting “Police suck! Black lives matter!”
TEXAS
25-year-old U.S. Army reservist Micah Johnson killed five of the 12 police officers he shot in a sniper-style attack at a Black Lives Matter-organized protest held in response to widespread media coverage of the recent deaths of two black men by police gunfire. The attack began at approximately 8:30 Thursday night, ending hours later after failed negotiations resulted in the killing of Johnson with a robot-deployed explosive.
The motive for Johnson’s crimes is currently believed to be wanting to kill whites, particularly white police officers, according to police who attempted to negotiate with the attacker.
(NOTE to readers: the following shooting incidents, particularly the two Georgia incidents, seem to have confused news reporters, who have published confused reports with misattributed names. The following is, to the best of our knowledge, correct.)
GEORGIA
Hours after the Dallas attack, 22-year-old Stephen Paul Beck allegedly called 911 with a report of a break in to lure police to his apartment in Valdosta and opened fire when they arrived. One officer took several bullets, one penetrating his equipment.
Beck was also wounded and was arrested.
No photo has been published of Beck but he is reported to be of Asian descent.
GEORGIA
At around 1 a.m. Friday, a 21-year-old man, Victor Alonzo Majia Nunez, opened fire on a police officer as he was driving past in a stolen vehicle in Roswell, Georgia.
The officer was not struck, and was surprised by the noises, at first thinking they might have been fireworks. The officer chased down the vehicle and arrested Nunez.
MISSOURI
At 11:00 a.m. Friday morning another officer was shot as he was undertaking a routine stop on a speeding car in Ballwin, St. Louis County. When the officer went back to his police car, the driver of the vehicle, Antonio Taylor, got out, advanced on the officer, and fired three shots at him.
“It was clearly an ambush, an attack,” said St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch. “There was no confrontation, no argument, no nothing.”
The gunman fled, and was finally captured after he exited his vehicle and ran.