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After reaching the courthouse and remarking on the harmonic event, the protesters decided to march back. They chanted, “Hands up, don’t shoot.”

And as night fell on the city, the pop of high-powered ammunition echoed above the marchers and across downtown Dallas.

Witnesses said the gunfire sounded like fireworks at first, but the chaotic reality quickly settled in.

“I was talking to one of the sergeants at the police department; all of a sudden I heard, 'Pop, pop' and I looked up and I see two bodies on the ground,\" Hood said. “I was touching my body. I was touching my chest because I really felt there was a possibility that I was shot. And so, as the sergeant ran toward the shooting, I ran back to tell the crowd, 'Back up, back up. Active shooter. Run away.’”

Officials said at least two snipers in elevated positions opened fire on police, who were protecting protesters. Some of the officers were shot in the back, police said.

Authorities negotiated with a suspect for several hours Thursday night and exchanged gunfire with him. The suspect told a hostage negotiator he was upset about the recent police shootings of black men and that he “wanted to kill white people, especially white officers,” Dallas Police Chief David Brown said at a news conference this morning.

The suspect also told the negotiator he was not affiliated with any groups and was acting alone. Police “saw no other option but to use our bomb robot … for it to detonate where the suspect was.” The suspect died as a result of the bomb, Brown said.

Shetamia Taylor, 37, was one of two civilians who were injured in the shooting. She was attending the protest rally with her four sons and was shot in the right calf while shielding one of them from the spray of bullets. The other three boys scattered in opposite directions, Taylor’s sister, Theresa Williams, told ABC Dallas affiliate WFAA.

\"She jumped on top to cover him on the ground as she pushed him in between two cars in the curb,\" Williams told WFAA. \"All she could think about was her other three boys -- where are they at.\"

Taylor laid there protecting her 15-year-old son for about five minutes before police rescued them. The mother was undergoing surgery early this morning and is expected to recover.

\"She's not so much worried about the gunshot wound she has on her leg,\" Williams told WFAA. \"We're watching the news in the hospital room, and all she can do is say, 'Lord, be with those families of those police officers.' And that's what she kept repeating.\"

Send love to the loved ones who have lost.

A video posted by Sarah-Noelle Hendrix (@sarahnoellehendrix) on Jul 7, 2016 at 8:50pm PDT

Santora, another witness who attended the protest rally, expressed grief for the officers who were killed and injured in the shooting, saying hatred and violence cannot be the response to police brutality.

“We have to keep love in our hearts and we have to fight for justice, and justice isn’t an eye for an eye and a life for a life in this moment,” she said on “Good Morning America” today.

“Those police officers were there taking care of us. Everyone in blue isn’t bad, but for those that are it makes all of us look bad if we don’t stand up for it.”

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