Trump calls Dallas shootings ‘an attack on our country’

by TheHill.com - 07/08/16 9:26 AM ET

Donald Trump called Thursday night’s shooting in Dallas “an attack on our country” in a statement released Friday morning.

Five police officers were killed and seven wounded in what appeared to be a coordinated attack by snipers firing with rifles from elevated positions near the route where demonstrators were protesting the killings of black men by police.

{mosads}”It is a coordinated, premeditated assault on the men and women who keep us safe,” the presumptive GOP presidential nominee said.

The statement went on to send support and prayers to the “brave police officers and first responders who risk their lives to protect us every day.”

Trump also addressed the deaths of black men in altercations with police this week, lamenting how the “senseless, tragic deaths of motorists in Louisiana and Minnesota reminds us how much more needs to be done” while offering prayers to “all of the victims’ families.”

Philando Castile, the Minnesota man, was shot in a car by a police officer during a traffic stop. Alton Sterling, the man who died in Louisiana, was selling CDs near a convenience store when he was held down by police in a parking lot and then shot.

Trump later posted a video version of the statement online.