How People Have Helped Out After Dallas Shooting and Police-Involved Deaths
After nation rocked by tragedy, here is how people have helped out.
— -- After a week of tragedies -- from the deaths of two black men in police-involved shootings in Louisiana and Minnesota to the death of five police officers in Texas -- the country has been left on edge.
In the wake of the shootings, officials and activists have established fundraising campaigns to help the victims and their families. And in the case of the Dallas shooting, children have set up lemonade stands.
Here are ways that people have helped out:
Alton Sterling and Philando Castile
The police shooting death of Alton Sterling last Tuesday in Baton Rouge, which was caught on video, sparked widespread protest and outrage. Someone had called 911, claiming to be threatened by a man with a gun outside a convenience store. Sterling was then confronted by police, and shot at point-blank range while officers were on top of him; someone can be heard saying "gun" before shots were fired.
Police have not said whether a gun was found on Sterling.
Prominent writer-actress Issa Rae started a scholarship fund for Alton Sterling's children, who lost their father. The fund has already raised more than $650,000.
On the day following Sterling’s death, video of the moments after police shot Philando Castile in his car in Falcon Heights, Minnesota, was live-streamed on Facebook by his girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds. Castile had told police that he had a pistol and a permit to carry it, according to Reynolds, but the officer can be heard on tape after the shooting saying that he told Castile not to reach for the weapon.
According to a lawyer for one of the officers involved in the shooting, the cop believed Castile resembled a robbery suspect and was reacting to the weapon, not Castile's race, the Associated Press said.
Activist Xavier L. Burgin has set up a fund for those looking to help support Castile's family and said all of the money raised will be given directly to Castile's mother.
Castile's sister, Allysza Castile, also set up a fund for the family.
Raquel Coombs, a spokesperson for the NAACP told ABC News today that another way to help is to vote. "We need strong racial profiling laws at the state and municipal levels and passage of the End Racial Profiling Act and the Law Enforcement Trust and Integrity Act," Coombs said, citing two federal bills awaiting votes in Congress.
The legislation would, among other things, provide funding to train law enforcement to prevent racial profiling, and establish incentives for local police groups to adopt standards to minimize incidents of misconduct, respectively.
Coombs said the NAACP published a report two years ago, with a plan to reduce police discrimination, violence, and excessive use of force, among other things.
Change.org has also amalgamated 17 petitions on the subject of police accountability. The petitions include everything from calls for officers to be re-trained, the banning of choke-holds, ending the use of military equipment, to other issues related to police accountability. They are directed at various groups including the House, the Senate, and other officials within the criminal justice system.
Dallas Police Department
A peaceful protest sparked by the death of Sterling and Castile took a tragic turn on Thursday night, when a gunman killed five police officers and injured nine others.
In a Facebook post, the Dallas Police department directed those interested in making donations to the Assist the Officer Foundation, the Dallas Foundation, and the Dallas Fallen Officer Foundation.
One seven-year-old girl from Wimberley, Texas set up a lemonade stand to raise money for the Dallas police department in the aftermath of the tragic shooting.
The day before the shooting took place in Dallas, the American Red Cross Southwest Region issued "an emergency call for blood and platelet donations to address significant shortage."
The American Red Cross DFW also set up a blood drive the day after the shooting in the lobby of City Hall and announced on Twitter that it was fully booked, and the first to donate was a police officer. The group said it has supplied more than 225 blood products to one of the hospitals treating victims, and that the group is on standby should additional blood be needed.
The Dallas Police chief also said the department was hiring, saying at a press conference today, "Get off that protest line and put an application in and we’ll put you in your neighborhood and we will help you resolve some of the problems you’re protesting about.”
In response to the shooting in Dallas, Reynolds, who witnessed the shooting of her boyfriend, told ABC News last week "We are all grieving, we are all mourning, we are all battling this together, and if we don't come together they're going to break us all apart."
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