Wichita-area officials react to killing of Dallas officers

On the day after an attack that killed five Dallas police officers and wounded several others at a demonstration, Wichita Police Chief Gordon Ramsay gave his perspective.

“We are really in one of the darkest times … in the history of our profession,” he said Friday at a City Hall news conference.

There is a concern that copycat crimes could occur, Ramsay said.

To help prevent violence in Wichita, police and community groups, including those representing minorities, are working together, Ramsay said.

Before Ramsay spoke, Wichita Mayor Jeff Longwell said the city wanted to express its condolences to those affected by the “horrific incidents that rocked our country this past week.” Longwell said public safety remains the city’s No. 1 priority.

Earlier Friday, other area law enforcement officials reacted to the Dallas killings, which came after protests over the deaths of two African-American men shot by police earlier this week in Louisiana and Minnesota.

“It’s a sad day for law enforcement,” Butler County Sheriff Kelly Herzet said.

Sedgwick County Sheriff Jeff Easter put it this way: “As violent as the world is, did this really surprise me? No.”

Both Wichita-area sheriffs were speaking of the deaths of five Dallas officers, killed by a gunman lashing out at police on Thursday night during a protest over police shootings.

Herzet – in the midst of a contested race for sheriff – said he was not campaigning Friday.

“I want all people’s attention to go” to the slain officers’ families, he said.

“Let’s pray for the families in Dallas, Texas.”

The Dallas attack appeared to be planned, Herzet said.

“Guns don’t kill people. People kill people,” he said.

But the Wichita Coalition Against Gun Violence, which condemned the Dallas police shooting, added that guns are a key part of the problem.

“We have too many firearms in the homes, businesses, automobiles, purses and pockets of Americans – over 300 million,” the group said in a statement Friday.

Herzet said he is reminding his officers, “Just remember that everyone can carry a gun now.”

And “in the world we live in,” he said, “you can’t let your guard down.”

As Herzet and some of his staff ate breakfast at an El Dorado restaurant Friday, they reflected that in a world where police can be targets, they never know when they are at that restaurant whether someone might walk up to the counter, pretend to give an order, then walk over and execute them. It has happened elsewhere, he noted.

And because Thursday night’s attack happened right down the interstate from Wichita, it has a bigger impact in Sedgwick County than some of the officer deaths on the coasts, Easter said.

Easter said he has a habit – especially when in uniform – and out at a public venue of sitting so that he faces the door.

“I want to see what’s coming in.”

Still, a cop can’t be paranoid, Easter said.

“If you become hyper-vigilant and treat everybody like they’re out to hurt you, then that’s a problem,” he said.

But it’s more complicated now because people are able to legally carry guns in ways they couldn’t before. So, Easter said, “it is a guessing game” in a very short time frame of whether the people are legally carrying, exercising their rights or have evil intentions.

Easter said he accepts that people will protest officers’ actions.

“But the answer is not to kill cops,” he said.

Djuan Wash, a Wichita community organizer who is African-American, said that although the Black Lives Matter movement is “demanding accountability for police brutality,” the attack on the Dallas officers is “not what Black Lives Matter stands for.”

It is a nonviolent movement demanding legislation “to deal with the issue of state police violence,” Wash said.

Speaking of the alleged gunman, Wash said: “I don’t know what his motivations were. So I don’t want to speculate on what this person was doing.

“But at the end of the day, we have a problem with systemic racism. We have a problem with police violence in this country.”

This story was originally published July 8, 2016 at 12:28 PM with the headline "Wichita-area officials react to killing of Dallas officers."