Five were arrested early Tuesday morning in Washington, D.C., after police officers were shot at from persons in an SUV. The officers were attempting to make an arrest.
No injuries have been reported, and it was not part of an ambush, according to Fox News. The officers were responding to a report of gunshots in Southeast Washington, D.C. The suspects surrendered to the officers after about 30 minutes of hiding in a vehicle. There were three women and two men who surrendered. Officers were alerted to the neighborhood by the ShotSpotter system, WTOP reported. The system uses sensors to detect gunfire and notifies law enforcement officers.
The shootings come in the wake of protests all over the country, and the execution of five officers in Dallas, Texas on Thursday night. Black Lives Matter and others have spoken out against the police shooting deaths of Alton Sterling in Louisiana and Philandro Castile in Minnesota.
The Minnesota police officer who shot and killed a black man after a traffic stop had nothing to do with race, the presence of a gun did, says his lawyer, as reported by Breitbart Texas. The situation went viral and racial tensions have been inflamed by a video produced by the dead man’s girlfriend. Diamond Reynolds livestreamed her bloody slumped-over boyfriend, Philando Castile (32), as he lay dying in the car.
During the livestream, the girlfriend said the “police just shot my boyfriend for no apparent reason,” as reported by Breitbart News. She was also talking to the officer and told him, “You shot four bullets into him, Sir. He was just getting his license and registration, Sir.” She also said they were pulled over for a busted taillight.
As can be heard in the video, the officer told the girlfriend, “I told him not to reach for it. I told him to get his hand off of it.” This occurs at the 40-second mark in the video.
Fox 9 reported that there had been a “recent convenience store robbery” and that media and blog reports were comparing photos of Castile and surveillance images at the store. The Minnesota lawyer told the local Fox affiliate that “I can’t comment on that.” “But I can tell you that the stop of the vehicle for an equipment violation was not the only reason for the stop.”
Sterling was shot last Tuesday morning after an altercation with two officers, Breitbart News’ Lee Stranahan reported. “Around 12:35 a.m., Baton Rouge police responded to the Triple S Food Mart at 2112 N. Foster Drive after an anonymous caller indicated that a man in a red shirt who was selling CDs outside the store pointed a gun at someone, telling them to leave the property.” An autopsy revealed that he sustained two gunshot wounds, one in the chest and one in the back. Like the Castile case, there was also a video made, here by a bystander. It shows the officer firing a round into the man’s chest.
Anti-cop threats and calls for violence on social media were substantial after the police-involved shooting of Alton Sterling. And, as reported by Breitbart News, Twitter took no action as calls for cop-killing swept the social media platform. Breitbart’s Lee Stranahan also reported how the institutional left and Black Lives Matter movement manipulate the rhetoric after a police shooting.
The fatal shooting on Wednesday night preceded the execution of five police officers in Dallas, Texas, on Thursday night. A sniper killed them and wounded six others in the horrific melee.
Lana Shadwick is a contributing writer and legal analyst for Breitbart Texas. She has served as a prosecutor and associate judge in Texas. Follow her on Twitter @LanaShadwick2.
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