Parts of downtown Dallas were closed off for hours, with no bus or rail service and flight restrictions in effect.
Outside Parkland Hospital, police saluted their fellow officers who lost their lives or were wounded in the shooting. Other people later joined the officers for an impromptu vigil.
The Dallas protest was one of several nationwide over the deaths of Alton Sterling in Louisiana and Philando Castile in Minnesota that prompted Obama to make an emotional appeal for urgent police reform.
– ‘All lives matter’ –
Thousands marched in Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, Saint Paul, Washington and other cities late Thursday, with more than 1,000 protesters gathering in New York’s Times Square.
Obama issued an emotional appeal for unity, but also made it clear that violence against police had “no possible justification.”
“There is no contradiction between us supporting law enforcement… and also saying that there are problems across our criminal justice system, there are biases — some conscious and unconscious — that have to be rooted out,” Obama said.
“So when people say “Black Lives Matter,” that doesn’t mean blue lives don’t matter — it just means all lives matter,” he said in Poland, where he was attending a NATO summit.
Rawlings, the Dallas mayor, called it a “heartbreaking morning.”
“We as a city, we as a country, must come together, lock arms and heal the wounds that we all feel from time to time. Words matter. Leadership matters at this time,” he said.
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