DALLAS, United States (AFP) — Five police officers were killed in a sniper-style attack by a black army veteran during a protest in Dallas against police brutality towards African-Americans late Thursday. These are the victims.
Brent Thompson, 43
Thompson was a police officer attached to the Dallas Area Rapid Transit Authority. The first DART officer to be killed in the line of duty since the agency formed its police force in 1989, he joined the department in 2009.
“He was a great officer,” DART chief told ABC News, “doing those things that we expect of police officers and this particular case doing what he was supposed to be doing.”
A former Marine who supervised Americans training police in Iraq and Afghanistan while working for a private military contractor, he was a father of six and had remarried two weeks before his death.
Patrick Zamarripa, 32
A Navy veteran who served three tours in Iraq, Zamarripa joined the Dallas police force around five years ago and was recently assigned to downtown bicycle patrols.
His father, Rick Zamarripa, told CNN that his son loved the Navy.
“He was very giving,” he said. “He would give you his last dollar if he had it in his pocket and you needed it.”
Zamarripa’s longtime partner, Kristy Villasenor, was at a Texas Rangers baseball game with their 2-year-old daughter Lyncoln on Thursday night, The Washington Post reported.
When she posted a photo from the game on Facebook, a friend responded, “Glad Pat is there and not in Dallas right now…” the Post reported.
“He’s not here,” Villasenor replied. “I just tagged him so he’ll get the pic.”
She got word to head to the hospital soon after, the paper said.
Michael Krol, 40
A native of Michigan, Krol joined the Dallas police department in 2007.
“He was living a dream of being a police officer,” his mother, Susan Ehlke, told Michigan television station WXYZ. “He knew the danger of the job but he never shied away from his duty as a police officer.”
Michael Smith, 55
A former Army Ranger who later attended the Lamar Institute of Technology, Smith joined the Dallas police in 1989, the Dallas Morning News reported. He was a father of two.
“He loved his job and the guys on the force, and he loved his wife and kids,” family friend Vanessa Smith told the newspaper. “I can’t imagine what his wife and daughters are going through. You just don’t expect it. It’s devastating.”
Lorne Ahrens, 48
A native of California, Ahrens was a 14-year veteran of the Dallas Police Department.
After spending all night at the hospital, his wife Kartina Ahrens returned home to tell their two children, aged ten and eight, that their father had died, the Dallas Morning News reported.
“They don’t get it yet,” she told the paper.
“They don’t know what to do quite yet.”
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