2016 Shootings of Dallas Police Officers

                 On July 7, 2016, Micah Johnson ambushed and fired upon a group of police officers in Dallas, Texas, killing five police officers and injuring nine others.  Two civilians were also wounded.  Johnson was an Army Reserve veteran who was reportedly angry over police shooting of black men and stated that he wanted to kill white people, especially white police officers.  The shooting happened at the end of a protest against police killings of Alton Sterling in Louisiana, and Philando Castile in Minnesota, which had occurred in the preceding days.

                  Following the shooting, Johnson fled inside a building inside a local college campus.  Police follow him there, and a standoff ensued.  In the early hours of the morning on July 8, police killed Johnson with a bomb attached to a remote controlled robot.

                  While this is a very horrible and tragic story, it all stems from Micah Johnson most likely believing in the conspiracy theory, Fear of a black plant.  He believed that white police officers killed multiple black men just because of the color of their skin.  This shooting was the kind of retaliatory violence that happens when crazy theories are put out for all the nation to hear, and it throws yet another wrench in the already heated debates over race and criminal justice that has already deeply divided the nation.               

                  I would like to believe that in this day and age that the conspiracy theory the fear of a black planet did not exist. However, when black race has been dealing with crazy theories like the Church’s Chicken and Tropical Fantasy Soda conspiracies since the early 70’s, I can’t say that I blame them.  As I have stated before in my earlier posts, even false beliefs have lessons to teach us.  And they say a lot about the previous experiences of people that believe them.

                                                      Works Cited

Fernandez, Manny. "Five Dallas Officers Were Killed as Payback, Police Chief Says." The New York Times, 8 July 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/07/09/us/dallas-police-shooting.html.

"2016 Shooting of Dallas Police Officers." Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 20 Apr. 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_shooting_of_dallas_police_officers.