Dallas city council members had a unique vantage point at today’s memorial service for the police officers who died in last week’s shootings. They sat in the choral section of the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center, facing the audience.
The victims’ families sat on the first two rows, and Councilman Mark Clayton says he “almost lost it” when he saw the father of slain Dallas Police Officer Patrick Zamarripa break down crying. Clayton, who represents Lakewood and areas east of White Rock Lake, says he hurt for the victims’ families during an event that, while honoring their loved ones, was designed for a wider audience.
“I don’t think those families hear those words and they feel, you know, that everything’s OK. Nor should they,” Clayton says. He added, however, that he is “very proud” of the words that were spoken. “I think they said exactly what should be said, which is, ‘Let’s not varnish hard truths.’ ”
Councilman Philip Kingston similarly lauded the words of Mayor Mike Rawlings and Dallas Police Chief David Brown, noting that Brown’s reference of the Stevie Wonder song “As” to express his sentiments “showed that what was most important was not wordsmithing an amazing speech.” President Bush and President Obama “were the highlights,” Kingston says, noting that Bush had “the best line”: “Too often we judge other groups by their worst examples, while judging ourselves by our best intentions.”
Obama, too, was “the best I’ve ever heard him,” Kingston says, in the way the president congratulated Dallas for how it has responded to the tragedy, and addressed both the challenge of policing a big city and the challenge of policing in a way that respects civil rights.
City Council is in the middle of its summer recess, and both Clayton and Kingston, who represents the M Streets, Lower Greenville and portions of Old East Dallas, were out of town when the shooting began. Clayton was on vacation with his family, while Kingston was on a flight heading to a conference.
Strange feeling. I’ve always seen our flags lowered to recognize the pain of other cities. Thank you, @CityPGHpic.twitter.com/aY2LGu1Zsq
— Philip Kingston (@PhilipTKingston) July 9, 2016
While in the air, Kingston began tweeting as he received information about what was happening. “You ever cry in front of strangers?” one tweet said. All of the Dallas City Council felt this emotional about the attack on its officers, he says.
“We can disagree on this, that or the other, and I may call someone a scalawag for voting against me, but the truth is, all of us are trying to help the city,” he says. “When you’re in this job, you just feel a sense of ownership.”
What happened last Thursday night, Clayton says, forced Dallasites to look outside their immediate neighborhoods to their wider neighborhood — the city. Issues that may have felt far removed from our corner of the world suddenly became personal.
“When stuff like this happens, it brings home the fact that this is our neighborhood, this is our city this is our lives, and you can affect that,” he says.
