There is concern now across the nation that the violence feeding on itself will grow worse. Clergy gathered in Boston to pray for peace, one reverend using the words of a distraught girlfriend crying to God.
"Oh my God, please don't tell me he's dead," Diamond Reynolds called out after her boyfriend was shot and killed by a police officer.
That plea was turned into a prayer for our troubled times. Clergy members including Rev. Laura Everett called for peaceful demonstrations in response to that and the shootings of 12 police officers in Dallas, five of whom died.
The shooter, who police killed, told them he did it in response to police shootings of black men. The head of the Boston Chapter of the NAACP is not so sure.
"People can stoke that tension and I'm hoping this is not someone trying to capitalize on tension over police involved shootings to get us fighting, get us at war with ourselves," said Michael Curry.
Daunasia Yancey is one of the organizers of Black Lives Matter in Boston. She says blaming the movement for what happened in Dallas is wrong and dials up the tension.
"The narrative that we've seen, the rhetoric of the war on cops actually makes things less safe for black people," Yancey said. "Using these individual circumstances to demonize the entire movement is very problematic."
