A reported 100 demonstrators showed up for a Dallas Black Lives Matter solidarity march Thursday night. Despite a few tense moments, the protest remained tame. Dallas police made no arrests.
The demonstration, called “Enough is Enough,” was organized by the Next Generation Action Network, the same social justice warriors who orchestrated the Dallas Black Lives Matter protest that ended with the fatal shootings of five Dallas police officers.
This event began with a 6:30 p.m. rally at Dallas’ Garden Park, only blocks away from where gunman Micah X. Johnson killed four Dallas police, one Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) officer, and injured nine others in uniform on July 7. The group denied any connection to Johnson.
Next Generation Action Network asserted their protest was not anti-police but was an anti-police brutality and violence against black people rally. On Facebook, they posted “these heinous acts by out of control police officers have to stop.” They listed the deaths of Terence Crutcher in Tulsa, Tyre King in Columbus, Terrence Sterling in Washington D.C., and Keith Lamont Scott in Charlotte, who police say had a gun and not a book at the time he was fatally shot.
At Thursday’s protest, police presence was virtually undetectable until protesters spilled onto downtown streets. They chanted “No justice! Shut it down!” and “Hands up! Don’t Shoot!” as officers suddenly swarmed the area, confronting them in the middle of the road. Some police wore tactical gear. Apparently, the Dallas Police Department (DPD) only asked march participants to do one thing — stay on sidewalks and do not block traffic.
Quickly, this gave way to cooperation and officers retreated. Other than this, some agitators got into verbal fights with a small group of Black the Blue supporters and All Lives Matter proponents. A few called police “cowards,” KTVT tweeted. Still, no violence ensued. The demonstration wrapped up by 9 o’clock.
Next Generation Action Network founder Dominique Alexander, 27, made an appearance at the earlier park rally, surprising many since he was recently jailed to serve five years for repeat violations on an existing probation sentence from a 2009 child abuse conviction. KTVT reported a judge recalculated Alexander’s sentence based on time already served and released him Thursday morning.
Alexander, a convicted felon and minister, attended the rally with the activist group’s attorney Kim T. Cole. After the Dallas police attack, Alexander insisted enough time passed for grieving the loss of the massacred officers. He scheduled a July 29 “police brutality” protest against the wishes of Dallas Police Chief David Brown, who asked Alexander by email: “What’s more important than our officers safety…cancel it and don’t schedule anymore in the downtown area…I insist.”
Thursday afternoon, Cole held a press conference outside of DPD headquarters. She called for “serious police reform not only in Dallas but across the country” and alleged an unidentified person was killed by Dallas police in late August. She questioned DPD’s “transparency,” asserting the department withheld information about purported police brutality.
The department indicated otherwise saying they posted on the DPD blog about 19-year police veteran Christopher Wagner, who fatally shot a 36-year-old man, Elias Portillo. However, this followed Portillo fleeing from a traffic stop on foot with a handgun. It turned into a police chase where the suspect, Portillo, did not obey the officer’s commands and pointed the weapon at Wagner. The Dallas Morning News reported Portillo had a criminal history including arrests for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, evading arrest and theft.
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