This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
South Salt Lake • The slaughter of five police officers in Dallas during a "Black Lives Matter" protest has left law enforcement in Utah feeling betrayed, angry, heartbroken and under siege.
"It thrust us right into the middle of chaos," Brent Jex, president of Utah's Fraternal Order of Police, said Friday. "It is a powder keg right now. That very well could have been any one of us in any part of the country."
At the same time, members of a community group are planning a similar protest in front of Salt Lake City's Public Safety Building for Saturday at 6 p.m. to bring attention to what they consider unjust police shootings of black men in Minnesota and Louisiana, with the aftermath captured on video.
Salt Lake City Police Chief Mike Brown's officers will stick to standard protocol, he said, and respect protesters — even as they mourn for their brothers and sisters in blue.
"We will be ever vigilant [for] anyone who wants to do harm," Brown said. "But we will treat this as usual. ... I think we are better here, where people can come out and express themselves in a peaceful manner."
Brown and Salt Lake County Sheriff Jim Winder held a joint news conference at the Unified Police Department headquarters in South Salt Lake to express their horror and grief over the slayings in Dallas, apparently perpetrated by a black veteran upset at the recent police shootings, but not associated with the Black Lives Matter movement. Seven officers were wounded and five died, making it the deadliest incident for police officers since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
"I was absolutely stunned as I watched a peaceful demonstration devolve ... into urban warfare," said Winder, who credited Dallas police for protecting people as they sought cover from the barrage of bullets.
"We live in a time ... when many of us have lost sight of the basic decency that is supposed to exist between human beings," said the sheriff, adding that social media posts are replete with "vitriol that none of us would have tolerated [years ago]."
The sniper attack brought a nationwide debate over law enforcement and race relations to a new heartbreaking low, leaving Winder to suggest: "Maybe we have hit bottom here, people — when people feel they can go to a peaceful demonstration ... and open fire on peacekeepers. ... Thank God we live in a city and community where we have not devolved [to that level]."
Brown, who blinked back tears, expressed condolences to the families of the officers gunned down in Dallas, saying, "Our brotherhood and sisterhood, we are all paying a price today." He lamented that too many see police officers as anonymous figures rather than "brothers, sisters, fathers and mothers."
Winder said he and Brown were discussing plans to send officers to Dallas to represent their departments as the dead are laid to rest.
"We cannot keep doing this," Brown said. "There is a better way ... to come together as a city, to work together on these trust issues."
Brown and Winder vowed to continue efforts to improve police relationships with minorities and the community at large, urging more constructive interactions.
"It's hard to hate up close," Brown added. "When we sit down and talk and interact and shake hands and [exchange] hugs, that hate and bias is gone."
It's everyone's "God-given right" to protest, Brown said, but sitting down "face to face" is where solutions come.
Lex Scott with the United Front Party, a sponsor of Saturday's protest, said she was "as angry as you can get" at the Dallas ambush.
"We are beyond fed up and upset that people would go out and take it upon themselves to perpetuate violence against police in this country," she said. "It only makes police look like victims and heroes, and it lessens our cause and silences our voices."
The rally, she said, is part of a large fight against police violence that she considers systematic.
"We will continue to fight it," Scott said. "We will dedicate our lives to fighting it."
Instead of more fighting, Utah's politicians called for understanding after a deadly week.
Gov. Gary Herbert ordered flags dropped to half-staff in recognition of the police officers who died, and Rep. Mia Love, R-Utah, the first black Republican woman in Congress, said: "The only way we can find our way out of the morass of this poisonous environment is to come together as a nation and declare that we are better than this."
The protest in Dallas was a reaction to two questionable police shootings. One was in Baton Rouge, La., where police shot and killed Alton Sterling, a black man, after subduing him. He had a gun in his pocket, though it is unclear from bystander videos whether he made any movement toward the weapon. The second shooting took place outside of St. Paul, Minn., where an officer killed Philando Castile, also black, after pulling him over for a broken taillight. Castile told the officer he had a concealed-weapon permit. The officer shot him as he apparently was reaching for his license.
Both men would be alive, supporters of Black Lives Matter argue, if they were white. That line of thinking angers Michael Millard, the president of the Salt Lake Police Association, because it is made before the facts in either case are known. He doesn't believe law enforcement has a widespread racial problem, though he acknowledges "isolated incidents" of misconduct.
"Are police officers going after people and shooting and killing them based on race? Absolutely not; it is ridiculous," he said. "I think the [political] leaders who are propagating the fake mantra need to tell people to knock it off."
Millard and Jex believe President Barack Obama has worsened the issue by giving credibility to the argument that black people are treated differently.
In reaction to Castile's shooting, Obama released a statement saying: "When incidents like this occur, there's a big chunk of our citizenry that feels as if, because of the color of their skin, they are not being treated the same, and that hurts, and that should trouble all of us. This is not just a black issue, not just a Hispanic issue. This is an American issue that we all should care about."
If the tension is ever to dissipate, Jex says, community activists need to reach out to law enforcement instead of protest.
"We'd like to see major, legitimate organizations come out and say, 'Let's stop this and figure it out,' " he said. "I just wish I knew what the answer was."
Rally planned to protest police shootings
A rally in support of the protests in other parts of the country where citizens — specifically black men — have been shot by police is planned for 6 p.m. Saturday at the Salt Lake City Public Safety Building, 475 S. 300 East.