A peaceful protest was being held for the killing of Alton Sterling before shooting targeted 12 police officers in the area, five of which have died as well as two civilian injuries. According to CNN, three suspects are in custody while one was killed by a bomb during an attempt to apprehend.

“We saw no other option but to use our bomb robot and place a device on its extension for it to detonate where the suspect was,”Dallas Police Chief David Brown said. “Other options would have exposed our officers to grave danger. The suspect is deceased as a result of detonating the bomb.”

Reports claim that the suspect who died claimed that his motive was to kill white police officers as a result of the upsetting police shootings of civilians.

“All I know is that this must stop — this divisiveness between our police and our citizens,” Brown said. “We don’t feel much support most days. Let’s not make today most days. Please, we need your support to be able to protect you from men like these, who carried out this tragic, tragic event.”

“I’m not going to be satisfied until we’ve turned over every stone. We’ve got some level that this one suspect did do some of the shooting. But we’re not satisfied that we’ve exhausted every lead,” he added. “So if there’s someone out there who’s associated with this, we will find you, we will prosecute you, and we will bring you to justice.”

Authorities have yet to identify the suspects of the attack pending their investigation.

Initial misreports

As the news of the shooting broke, members of the media scrambled to find information to report, as they often do in these crisis situations. Unfortunately, this led to some unnecessary and dangerous misreporting.

Namely, the identification of a man named Mark Hughes, the brother of a protest organizer, as a suspect of the shooting. A photo of Hughes was shared on Dallas PD’s Twitter account displaying him walking with protestors with an assault rifle at his side.

https://twitter.com/DallasPD/status/751262719584575488?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

However, videos showing Hughes on the scene looking to keep protestors calm immediately after raised many questions of his involvement. A video then began to circulate showing Hughes willingly giving his weapon to officers after the attack and he then turned himself into authorities, according to CBS. It soon became clear that he was falsely identified as a person of interest whose life could’ve been put in serious danger.

Photo Credit: Wiki Commons