15 Photos and Videos From a Deadly Week of Shootings
This week, crowds of demonstrators gathered around the country to protest the police shooting deaths of two black men Alton Sterling and Philando Castile. Sterling was killed in Baton Rouge, La. on July 5 at point-blank range, after being tackled by police and pinned to the ground. His death was recorded on video and sparked immediate protests in the Louisiana capital. On July 6, a day later, Philando Castile was shot in Falcon Heights, Minn. after being pulled over for a routine traffic stop. A video of the incident's aftermath was also captured by Diamond Reynolds, Castile's girlfriend, and reached nearly 2.5 million views on Facebook by the next day. On July 7, demonstrators gathered in New York City's Union Square at 5 p.m. Protesters then marched up 5th Ave. against the flow of traffic, through Times Square and past Central Park up to Malcolm X Blvd. in Harlem, chanting "Black lives matter" and "No justice, no peace.", They also notably chanted "We gon' be alright," a poignant lyric from Kendrick Lamar's song "Alright," which the New York Times described as the "unifying soundtrack" for the Black Lives Matters movement. That same night in Washington D.C. hundreds of people marched from the White House to the steps of the Capitol, storming through barricades. Later on July 7, five police officers were killed in Dallas and nine others were injured by a shooter during an anti-police brutality protest. The attacker was later identified as Army veteran Micah Xavier Johnson, who was killed by a bomb robot detonated by Dallas police on July 8. Following the shooting, Dallas Police Chief David O. Brown and locals from the city united for a tribute to the fallen officers.