Dallas Shooting: Artist’s Historic Photos Capturing Crouching Police Officer During Gun Battle Go Viral [Photos]

The words “Dallas shooting” may invoke unpleasant memories for all those involved in the gun battle that raged between Dallas Police Department officers and the gunman, Micah Xavier Johnson, on Thursday, but for one man, it was a day he would never forget for slightly different reasons.

Robert Moore, an artist based in Dallas, was caught in the sniper attack that killed five policemen and injured about a dozen others on Thursday night. Unable to get himself to a place of safety, Moore found himself vulnerable in the thick of the action. So, he decided to crouch behind a police officer who was using his car as a shield against gunfire.

“I spent two hours last night crouching behind a car at Lamar and Main, trying to ‘GET SMALL! GET SMALL!'” Moore wrote on Friday morning, before sharing this photograph of an unidentified police officer, who not only protected the artist during the gunfire, but also became the subject of a historic photograph that succinctly captures the mood prevailing in the country after the Dallas shootings.

“Much of it was with this guy,” Moore wrote.

“I don’t know his name but I will never forget him”.

There are three photos in total that Robert Moore uploaded from the time he spent crouching behind the police officer, and you can view them by clicking on the thumbnails above.

The photos were then uploaded by a fellow Dallas artist on the image-sharing site Imgur, where the historic photographs have gone on to be viewed nearly 70,000 times in less than 13 hours.

Robert Moore’s photographs became an instant hit on the internet owing to their raw, visceral quality and the contrasting colors on the subject’s face. He appears exasperated, and yet keen to continue the battle to its bitter end, which, unfortunately, was the only way that he and Moore could have escaped safely from the sniper gunfire.

Moreover, the photographs appear staged, and are almost cinematic in their execution, and for that very reason, even more powerful in relaying the powerlessness that the police officer, and indeed Moore, must have felt during the battle.

The photos are also a stark reminder that police officers are humans after all, something we perhaps tend to forget in light of the recent shootings that have taken place at the hands of law enforcement officials across the country.

Viewers who were mesmerized by the quality of the images shared their impressions on why they thought the photographs, especially the first one, could become the pictures that will define the Dallas shootings in years to come.

“This is not only art, but historic. Timeless. Not trying to sensationalize it. It just seems raw. Amazing work. Sorry it happened,” one viewer wrote about the powerful images.

“His eyes. I can’t stop looking at the emotions in his eyes,” another comment read.

“Damn, these should be nominated for a Pulitzer or something. Gripping, raw, visceral, and eerie,” another person wrote.

“As a photographer and human, I think this is probably the best and worst place to be,” summed up another user.

In light of the recent shootings of African-American men by law enforcement officials and the retaliatory sniper ambush propagated by Micah Xavier Johnson, it is important that we do not let hate overcome the feelings of empathy that we have towards our fellow beings.

While it is true that the lives lost in the last few days are irreplaceable, we must also remember that our priority at this difficult hour is to take steps to eliminate the hate brewing among us, rather than incite it further. Because, as Martin Luther King Jr. said, only love will lead us to light.

Following sniper attacks, images of love profess support for #Dallas https://t.co/5JGMGAY6a7 pic.twitter.com/dNPJnOxnQz

— HuffPost (@HuffPost) July 9, 2016

[Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images]