Stephen Lendman

Unaccountable killer cops turning Black communities into battlegrounds made overnight Thursday’s incident inevitable.

It was just a matter of time - nor likely the last instance of justifiable public outrage exploding. People and communities take so much before reacting.

Until killer cops are held accountable for false arrests, extreme brutality, other forms of abuse and murdering Black youths, Dallas may prove a shot across the bow for what’s to come - a declaration of war against longstanding injustice.

This week’s headline-making police executions of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile in Baton Rouge and Falcon Heights, MN respectively reflect daily incidents across America - cops brutalizing Blacks unaccountably, over 1,000 cop killings in 2015, disproportionately affecting unarmed Blacks.

According to Dallas police chief David Brown, snipers opened fire on police around 8:45PM Thursday - five officers killed, 10 wounded, some seriously, Brown saying suspects intended planting explosives at downtown Dallas locations.

Shootings occurred during a nonviolent Black Lives Matter protest over Baton Rouge and Minnesota Blacks murdered by police in cold blood. A so-called person of interest is in custody along with a suspect (allegedly armed with a rifle) and others.

More gunfire was reported near El Centro College. According to the Dallas Morning News, one cop killed was a Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) officer.

A civilian was wounded. A woman near the shooting is in custody. A person of interest turned himself in. Shootings reportedly were from elevated positions with rifles.

Police aren’t certain if all suspects are in custody. One reportedly died from a “self-inflicted gunshot wound,” according to Fox News. More likely, cops killed him.

A suspicious package was found, secured by bomb squad police. Downtown Dallas is described as a “major crime scene.”

In Warsaw, Poland attending an anti-Russia NATO summit, Obama’s pretense of concern for racial disparities and America’s criminal injustice system rang hollow.

Saying “we can do better than this” belies his phony war on terrorism, imperial madness, unbridled militarism, neoliberal harshness, destruction of fundamental freedoms, indifference to human suffering, Big Brother watching everyone, and favoring privileged interests over all others.

Cops in America serve and protect the powerful at the expense of most others, especially people of color.

The nation’s gulag prison system, the world’s largest by far, attests to its barbarity - mostly filled with poor, disadvantaged Blacks and Latinos. Many are falsely convicted or locked in cages for illicit drug possession offenses too minor to matter.

Criminal injustice defines America, reinvented Jim Crow, enforced by killer cops - America more a police state than democracy.

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Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks World War III".

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.