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As the state of Texas is a large state filled with people, there are many issues that follow
it. A recent issue that has occurred on July 8th, 2016 is the Dallas shooting. This is an issue
because it involved 5 officer's deaths with 7 wounded and aggravated the police-citizen
relationship. The current solution to this issue is Chief Brown's "assigning policemen to his or
her respective neighborhood", to resolve some of the problems that were protested about.
On July 8th, 2016, shootings happened on the city of Dallas by a man named Micah
Johnson (CNN). The shooter made shots at the police when they were guarding a group of
peaceful protesters who were arguing on the police shootings of black men around the nation
including Philandro Castile and Alton Sterling (CNN). These black men were two of the victims
of police shootings that happened across the nation. Castile was shot 4-5 times while reaching for
his license and registration to carry a gun as told by his girlfriend Diamond Reynolds. The
policeman had requested that he show him these items and as he was reaching for them, the
policeman shot bullets into him saying "Don't move! Don't move!". This made quite no sense as
he cannot do both at the same time but he was still shot and killed, the policeman saying he told
him not to reach for it (NY times). Sterling was selling CDs outside and when a homeless man
came up suspiciously, Sterling shooed the man away, saying that he had a gun and that the
homeless man back off. However, the homeless man called the police that there was a gun threat
and the police immediately arrived to resolve it. Despite Sterling showing no resistance
whatsoever, two policemen wrestled him down and shot him several times, showing a large pool
of blood on his chest. Both of these incidents displayed unjustifiable behavior from the police
and the protest in Dallas was a result. The shooter killed 5 policemen and wounded several others
while shooting atop a building. The victims of this incident included Lorne Ahrens, Michael
Krol, Michael J. Smith, Brent Thompson, and Patrick Zamarippa (ny times). Johnson (25) had

served in Afghanistan with the rank of Sergeant and also clearly knew about the Black Lives
Matter march route to perform the attack, inferring that the perhaps the march group knew about
this (NY times). The one in charge of the march group, minister Dominique R. Alexander, denied
this vehemently however, saying that his group doesn't tolerate any sort of violence (NY
TIMES). Though the police tried to negotiate with Johnson, those broke down and Johnson
retaliated again (dallasnews). Johnson, according to Police Chief David O. Brown, said that he
was "upset about black lives matter. He was upset about the recent police shootings, and that he
was upset at white people and wanted to kill them, particularly white officers" (NY times). After
holding out against the police for several hours, Chief Brown finally sent in an armed robot with
C-4 explosive brick to Johnson's location where it blew up and killed Johnson (Dallasnews).
Afterwards, police stormed into Johnson's home where they found materials for making
explosive but no live ones that he had mentioned (dallasnews). The possibility of Johnson
working together with someone is also non-evident but inconclusive (dallasnews). President
Barack Obama also came to Dallas to mourn for the fallen officers, saying that this was a vicious
attack on law enforcement and that this is not justified under any circumstances (CNN).
This issue is, without a doubt, very relevant to Texas and to the citizens in it. The fact that
a shooting happened in Dallas as well shows that dangers also happen anywhere. However, the
more important issue is that this is one of the first shootings in which a citizen has retaliated
against the police with the method of violence. This will not only worsen the already widening
rift between the police and the citizens but since this is one of the "first", this will certainly not
be the "last", as evident by the Baton Rouge shooting on July X in which 3 more police officers
were killed. In addition, the police is the "law and order" of society. According to an article on
Redstate, there are approximately 376 police officers per 100,000 citizens which roughly

measure up to about one officer per 266 citizens. Clearly, the police officers cannot monitor
every single citizen in their jurisdiction with such off-balanced numbers (redstate). The reason
why citizens still feel somewhat safe nevertheless is because of 3 reasons according to redstate.
1. The society that citizens live in are just, 2. They hope that the few policemen that are here will
be there to protect them and 3. If someone commits a crime, the police will come and deliver the
appropriate justice (Redstate). With the police shooting these men at the even slightest possibility
of danger, these conditions have started to considerably lessen as the citizens have less faith in
this "orderly system" and on the contrary, begin to feel more fear and oppression from it.
According to X, the people are currently more afraid of police than they are of strangers (FIND
SOURCE). However, there had been avoidance of any violent action and thus the protests have
all been peaceful just like the one that was happening in Dallas pre-shooting. With the shooting
in Dallas however, the shackle of violent action has now been broken and just like the domino
effect, this action will lead to many more. If the citizens begin to fight and retaliate against this
"order", there are only two inevitable results: chaos and mob rule (FIND SOURCE). In short,
this issue has become the spark to make other violent issues happen.
Though the issue has been laid out, there have yet to be any conclusive solutions to solve
it. There is one solution that Chief Brown has suggested for the mass public. This is the one that
involves officers being stationed to areas where they are very familiar with the citizens there in
order to promote friendly action as well as the increase in job opportunity (fox news). This
solution is the most practical as the protestors can shape out their own neighborhoods by their
own hands rather than marching and accusing others of their inability. Barack Obama suggests a
tighter gun control law however this is not exactly a conclusive solution as there are still guns to
the public that can kill people. In the current circumstances, it is best to believe that there are

very professional policeman working in society and that retaliation is not a valid way to solve
injustice.
As shown above, the shooting in Dallas was a very unfortunate and a critical event in
which several policemen died and several others wounded. This issue is very much relevant as it
caused others to think more about violent retaliation, worsened the already unstable relationship
between the police and its citizens, and displayed that these events can also happen in the state of
Texas. The current best solution for this issue is one that police chief Brown has advised, in
which policemen are hired to work in their own neighborhoods to rebuild the relations as well as
resolve the protests that have been pointed towards the police as of late.