By Sandy Wells, KABC News
Sharay Santora was one of the African-American protesters in Dallas last Thursday night when the shooting started. She told 790 KABC’s McIntyre in the Morning that the march started peacefully.
“In the beginning, their response was surprise – I know my daughter, she started crying, because she so many people she did not expect to see there. We saw babies in strollers, we saw seniors, we saw black, white, Asian, Hispanic – we saw people in their full national garb … you wouldn’t believe that people from so many different walks of life would join and understand why we were there and she started to cry because she’s like, ‘They’re here for us, they understand, they’re supporting us. And my son was just amazed, he’s like, ‘Mama, look at all the people.’ ”
She said the feeling at the beginning was very positive – until the shots rang out.
“When we got there, there was so many people holding hands and clapping and hugging and there was a lot of love we were like whew! yay! this is a good protest, everyone is getting along, the police are involved and everything is great. We never expected for anything negative to happen. When the shooting started, we were in the front portion of the crowd when the first shots rang out. Thankfully, we weren’t at the front of the line but we were very, very close.”
Santora said the police were calm and told everyone to disperse quickly while they ran towards the sound of the shots.
“Everyone moved quickly out of the way, but there wasn’t an immediate pandemonium that broke out.”
She said it was not apparent at first that police were the target of the gunman.
Another African-American, Kellon Nixon, took his five-year-old son to the protest.
“I was probably a block away when the shooting started. We started to run.”
He got to his car safely. Then, as he was driving away, thankful to be at a safe distance from the shooting, he thought about his son’s experience.
“My mind was going a million miles an hour and then I looked over at him in the car and I’m like, ‘Well, what is he thinking?’ And so I said, ‘Son, how are you feeling?’ And he said to me, ‘You know, I’m just thinking I’m hungry.’ ”
Later, Nixon said he joined other citizens who took water and food to the police officers working at the the crime scene.
“Just trying to do little things to show I support the good police officers.”
Nixon and Santora were guests on 790 KABC’s McIntyre in the Morning Show.
