Angela McFarland called home immediately when she saw the news. The daughter of a Dallas police officer, she wanted to be sure her father was safe.
“He’s here, he’s fine,” her mom immediately told her over the phone. Her dad was spared, but McFarland still felt called to show her support to the rest of the DPD.
She — along with dozens of others — offered their condolences by bringing bouquets of flowers, notes and gifts to the Dallas police headquarters, adorning two cars and paying their respects. Many of the visitors to the headquarters knew officers, but many others stopped simply to show their compassion.
For instance, Brodrick Benton, 33, dropped off flowers only because a woman in traffic asked for some help.
“My homeboy was killed by the police, and now the police have been killed. So I have mixed feelings about all this,” Benton said. Yet he stayed to pay his respects, commenting on how unnecessary the shooting was.
Then there were people like Shannon Elliott, a friend of one of the injured officers. Thursday night, he was trying desperately to get in touch with his friend to be sure he was OK. At 4 a.m., he was finally told his friend would eventually be fine.
“Not even a month ago, there was Orlando, and we were all in solidarity there. For someone to think they can come to our city and open fire because they don’t agree with what someone believes, that’s where anger comes from,” Elliott said. “The shooter said they wanted to kill white officers, but our friend was Hispanic, not white.”
As Maravon Hyback and her roommate Amy Pool watched the news, Pool suddenly recognized one of the female officers.
“Isn’t that the one you took a picture with?” She asked Hybank. Hybank hurried to her phone to check. It wasn’t the officer in the picture, but it was the officer who took the picture.
A month earlier, Hybank had been at Westin when she began shaking uncontrollably. An officer came over to call her an ambulance.
“If he hadn’t, I probably would have died. I physically could not stop shaking,” Hybank said. She posed for a picture with the officer; a month later, she watched the female officer who took their picture on the news, injured.
“We had never had such a feeling for a stranger. This hit home; it scared me, and I was getting shaky and watered up as I watched the news last night,” Hyback said.
Less than a mile away, more people were dropping off flowers and visiting the Dallas Police Memorial near City Hall.
Vicki Gies, a retired officer, stopped by with her husband, Bill, to touch the names of the fallen officers she knew.
“They were just doing their job. That’s what we took an oath to do,” she said. “It hurts my heart.”
Downtown Dallas Inc. sent its cleaning squad out to scrub and polish the memorial after members cleaned Thanksgiving Square.
Dustin Bullard led the way, with Karl Wayne, Lesley Munoz and the remainder of the team ensuring it was spotless.
“We just felt like the memorial needed to look its best today,” Bullard said.
Parents and children flocked to the North Central Division station in Far North Dallas, where the officers were mourning the loss of an officer from the division.
The neighbors came bearing gifts, condolences and gratitude. Most thanked the officers for what they do every day.
“We wanted to be here for y’all,” one officer told a young visitor Friday. “We wanted to be here since it’s so nice you’re coming to thank us.”
(via: Dallas News)
