Sob. We are broken.

I just don't understand it. I've never felt any whatever towards a black person, they are just people like me you shoot me, you shoot them and we're going to bleed. What is going through these cops minds? Where are the cops learning that behavior?

I would love to see criminal justice reform and an acceptance of the Peel model of policing in your country. I don't know where that would start. It seems the justice system really is a way to keep good old Jim Crow alive. It is heartbreaking. However here in Canada we have just as disgusting incidents between police and First Nations people.

Not equally scary but I am afraid to travel out of my own county. It's not unheard of for cops to attack and or shoot old women. They were "provoked".

Now that everyone is encouraged to carry a gun what will happen next?

A few years ago cops nation wide were shooting dogs of any car they pulled over. No reason, just saying the dog was aggressive. They didn't know the difference between an approaching dog with a big grin on his face and a dog who was really attacking. And what would you expect a dog to do when his family is threatened?

I don't own a TV or subscribe to cable, but I listen to NPR daily and I've never heard of instances of cops attacking or shooting older women or dogs, care to provide a link for those assertions, imhappyandIknow it?

Yes, shooting the dog has been an ongoing tactic of the police for many many years and it's just not that well known publicly. Dogs are territorial by nature and may well attack somebody. The police were taught not to wait around and find out. Again, it goes back to the teaching. We need to understand where these lessons are being learnt

lakeaffect - There are many, many stories of police shooting innocent dogs. Google it. Here's details of one such horrible incident in my own state. (WARNING: News article contains photos of dead dog.)

Justice for Candy Middleton

Again, my heart breaks. Why does this keep happening and when are we as a country going to say enough is enough? I too keep hoping racist people will die off but racism is institutionalized in our society, and often passed down from generation to generation. I don't understand it, but have definitely witnessed it in some family members. I call them out on it. Every.Single.Time.

I cannot fathom what it would be like to be raising a black child today, fearful that he or she might be shot by a police officer for anything or nothing at all. I cannot fathom what it would be like to be Muslim in this country, where I might be yanked off of a plane for speaking my native language, or where my mosque might be set on fire or painted with racist epithets. I could go on and on.

I honestly don't feel very hopeful about the country my children will inherit.

It has been a regular occurrence where I live for dogs to be shot by police. So much so that a new policy was instituted regarding exactly that by my local PD a few years ago.

From Rev. Jim Rigby, a local Presbyterian minister.

FACE IT- THIS IS WHAT A WHITE SUPREMACIST NATION LOOKS LIKE

Mark Fuhrman has become the FOX News "go to" white authority figure called upon to justify violence against black people. Not surprisingly, Fuhrman was called upon today to defend the use of lethal force against Alton Sterling, just as he earlier defended the manhandling of a black teen age girl by a very large white school officer.

It is not hard to decode the use of a discredited law enforcement officer and a convicted perjurer as an expert on FOX’s ongoing theme that Black people deserve whatever violence happens to them.

What is it that makes Mark Fuhrman an expert on law enforcement? During the O.J. Simpson trial, a tape was played of Fuhrman using the n-word in an interview over 40 times. Fuhrman has also been quoted saying, “If I had my way my way... all the all the n____’s would be gathered and burned." He has also said that he had kicked and beaten black suspects just to relieve tension. Particularly revealing is FOX News calling on Fuhrman as a legal expert when he has been quoted as saying, "“This job (policing) is not rules. This is a feeling. F-ck the rules; we’ll make them up later.”

If you are a white person reading these words, you are living at a prophetic time in history. History demands that we face and renounce our white supremacist history. More importantly, recent events demand that we renounce and dismantle the white supremacist structures in our current law enforcement, as well as in our current political structure and media. Our times have removed any hiding places or neutral ground for white people. We are now living in a time when we must choose whether we will be the defenders of white supremacy or its destroyers.

(Thanks to Laurel Raymond of ThinkProgress for the quotes)

Not a lot different than blaming the rape victim for the rape.

Charlie Rose & Bryant Gumbel

Thank you for the link IdaClaire, I had no idea this was a regular happening in the US. My town doesn't have a police force or a newspaper, we rely on the county sheriff and the state police for our policing and a local website, "Newsjunky", for the police blotter, so my knowledge is admittedly limited. However, in my area of NNY, shooting dogs has not been an issue.

What is wrong with us? Why do we want the police to be militarized in our country? Heartbreaking for sure.

(Not to make dogs the issue, but when we had an issue with the dog next door, the police officer said he is not allowed to enter the yard of a barking dog. And he did not. And of course I wouldn't, because I'd be trespassing. And possibly bitten.)

The two most recent incidents are so egregious, I don't know where to begin. Point blank range?!

I moved to a small, rural, white Indiana town 25 years ago. When my son introduced himself to his new Kindergarten class by showing them a picture of his old class, he was told that he must have gone to a "bad" school. Why? Because some of his classmates were kids of color. Flash forward. Today I saw three kids walking down the sidewalk together, laughing. One was white, one was black, one appeared to be of middle eastern ancestry. If change can come here, it can come anywhere. Don't lose hope.

We have so many wonderful African American students who just want to work hard, go to school, plan for a career, hang out with their friends, and who don't get into any trouble whatsoever, but now I worry more and more that literally anything can happen to them just because of who they are.

This afternoon while driving with my teenage son, he asked me if I'd heard about Sterling and Castile. He read about these murders on Twitter and was shocked they had occurred.

Another of my children sat at our suburban kitchen island after Obama was inaugurated in 2009 and TV coverage showed MLK-era footage of police using firehoses to ward off black participants in walks in Birmingham. He asked me, "Mom, did this really happen?" He was witnessing the inauguration of our first president of color, along with the police brutality of African-Americans back in the '60s. In my lifetime.

We are a white suburban family in a sweet, kind, safe community. Every time I want to permanently turn off the news and social media, and shelter my children from the ugliness of this world, I realize what an irresponsible move that would be. They need to see this. They need to react and question this. And they will be the generation to correct this.

Among our politics, our laws, our economics, our social habits, and our tolerances of all of the above, we are a nation of fools. We need to hope that my kids and their generation can correct what we, collectively, have created for them.

lisa, you are right. We are a nation of fools. We, too, raised our children in the "perfect" neighborhood. What an irresponsible move it is to shelter children from the world! We sent them to high school in the city, culture shock, but probably the best thing that ever happened to them. They also chose diverse colleges/grad schools/med schools; etc. As a result of their experiences, my children have, and, hopefully, will have an impact on this world- it needs it!

11 police officers shot in Dallas overnight. 5 dead.

We have got to stop killing each other. It's all so senseless and barbaric. All of it.

This isn't intended as a blame comment.

The only thing my WWII veteran father told me about guns was "Don't point it at anything you don't intend to kill." Why did that officer shoot a person who was already under control? Why did the officer shoot a person he had asked for ID? Shoot first and ask questions later. A murder trial for those and other officers will not accomplish anything other than lining the lawyer's pockets. How often are they guilty? Even with eye witnesses and video nothing happens.

The way things are going now, one shooting spawns 2 others. Wouldn't it be perfect if one shooting brought everyone together and the atmosphere turned the other direction? The way we're going now it's a slippery slide to hell. It's not possible to "get even" and the out come be better.