Mother Who Took Bullet for Sons in Dallas Shooting Advises America to 'Learn to Love'

Shetamia Taylor offered a reminder on "GMA" that police "are not robots."

ByABC News
July 11, 2016, 8:28 AM

— -- The woman who helped protect her four sons from bullets Thursday during an ambush-style shooting on police at a protest in Dallas implored Americans to "learn to love" as they leave behind a tumultuous week.

She took her sons to the rally so that they could "see unity and how we can come together to make a difference," Shetamia Taylor, 37, told "Good Morning America" today from her home in Garland, Texas, where she is recovering from a bullet wound in her leg.

The rally, a peaceful protest of the police shootings of two black men in Louisiana and Minnesota, turned into chaos when a gunman opened fire, killing five police officers and injuring seven other city officers, two El Centro College police officers and two civilians, including Taylor.

Taylor stressed her admiration for police officers and asked people to try to see the humanity in them.

"As my son stated, you know, these are isolated incidents," she said of police shootings. "Unfortunately, [they are] frequent, but we have to learn to love. We have to learn to understand that policemen and policewomen are not robots."

PHOTO: Shetamia Taylor gets emotional as her sons tell reporters of their account of the deadly night when a gunman attacked and killed 5 police officers and wounding 7 others, including Taylor, during a press conference in Dallas, Texas,  July 10, 2016.
Shetamia Taylor gets emotional as her sons tell reporters of their account of the deadly night when a gunman attacked and killed 5 police officers and wounding 7 others, including Taylor, during a press conference in Dallas, Texas, July 10, 2016.

On Sunday, Taylor broke down in tears as she described the Dallas shooting in harrowing detail during a news conference at a Dallas hospital before checking out that day. She referred repeatedly to the police who shielded her and her four sons as "heroes," and in one affecting moment, she recalled hearing from her hospital bed that her children survived the shooting, only to witness a moment later one officer telling another that a colleague had died.

"I saw an officer tell another officer that an officer didn't make it, and I [was] celebrating my kids," she said Sunday, stopping to hang her head and weep, "my kids' being alive."

"It hurt," she said, referring to news of the officer's death.

Taylor's message this morning was one of hope and shared values.

"We all have so much more in common than I think that we all want to admit," she said.