A couple of thoughts about the horrible news Sunday that three police officers were shot and killed by a gunman who also died.
It may be a coincidence, but somehow it seems noteworthy that both the attacker in Baton Rouge and the man identified as the killer of five police officers 10 days before in Dallas have a military background.
The Baton Rouge gunman served in the Marines from 2005 to 2010. He reached the rank of sergeant, with the job of data network specialist. He was in Iraq for seven months, according to military records, and received several medals, including one for good conduct, before his honorable discharge.
The gunman was from Missouri and apparently came to Baton Rouge as part of protests surrounding the death of a man, at the hands of two police officers, in a late-night confrontation outside a convenience store.
The Dallas killer, who grew up in Texas, spent time in Afghanistan, where he was removed from the Army after being accused of inappropriate behavior toward a female soldier. He received a “less than honorable discharge,” and his friends and family believe he never recovered from being shamed by that incident, and they say it turned the outgoing young man into a loner — someone they didn’t know.
His new persona clearly was someone who remembered his military marksman training, even though an instructor said he didn’t seem too motivated to become an expert with a weapon.
In the Dallas attack, which occurred during a lawful protest march of the Baton Rouge shooting, the killer changed locations to confuse officers, who originally thought they were under attack by multiple gunmen.
We may never know why the gunmen, in spite of a military background that had to place great emphasis on identifying friends and foes, came to see police officers as the enemy. It’s too easy to say simply that as black men, they decided to take action against what they believed is a racist law enforcement system. There have to be other factors involved.
Meanwhile, eight police officers have died in the Dallas and Baton Rouge attacks, while at least 15 others have been wounded. Critics of police in Baton Rouge and Minnesota, where two black men were killed by law enforcement, have legitimate grievances about the use of force in both cases. But these grievances are about to be drowned out by public dismay over the deaths of the officers.
Protest marches over unjust treatment are fine, and citizen cell phone videos of fatal encounters help make the argument that some police officers are too quick to open fire.
But the attacks against police officers, none of whom had any connection to either incident that prompted the protests, smacks of the exact same mindset about which marchers complain.
Those who contend (wrongly) that all cops are racist should not be surprised when people with access to guns listen to them. The rhetoric contributed to Sunday’s slayings.
