The Black Lives Matter network is condemning the violence toward law enforcement in Dallas, but re-emphasizing its call for police reform.
In a statement released Friday, the activist movement that campaigns against violence toward black people called the Thursday night shooting in Dallas that left five officers dead and seven wounded “a tragedy— both for those who have been impacted for yesterday’s attack and for our democracy.”
The attack, BLM says, should not be used as a reason to “stifle a movement for change and quicken demise of a vibrant discourse on the human rights of Black Americans.”
“Black activists have raised the call for an end to violence, not an escalation of it. Yesterday’s attack was the result of the actions of a lone gunman. To assign the actions of one person to an entire movement is dangerous and irresponsible,” the statement reads.
The Black Lives Matter network also said the shooting of black men Alton Sterling and Philando Castile at the hands of police “highlight the urgent need to transform policing in America.”
The deaths of Sterling and Castile should be used as a “call for justice, transparency and accountability, and to demand that Black Lives Matter.”
In Dallas, protesters were marching peacefully to protest the deaths Sterling and Castile.
The suspect in the Dallas shooting, Micah Xavier Johnson, 25, was killed after an armed standoff with police. He was a private first class in the U.S. Army Reserve and served a tour of duty in Afghanistan.
