Dallas police applications up 344% since deadly July 7th shooting

Dallas police applications are up 344% since the shooting that killed five officers and wounded seven others, the police department announced on Saturday.

The Dallas police department has received 467 applications between July 8th and Wednesday, July 20th, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. There were just 136 in the same period in June, and 2,871 applications between Oct. 1, 2015 and June 1, 2016.

On July 7th, Micah Johnson opened fire on police during a Black Lives Matter rally. Five officers were killed and seven others were wounded before Johnson was killed by police with a “bomb robot.”

Four days after the shooting, Dallas police chief David Brown urged protesters to “serve your communities” rather than rally.

“We’re hiring. Get off that protest line and put an application in. We’ll put you in your neighborhood and we will help you resolve some of the problems you’re protesting about,” Brown said.

Brown told CNN that starting officers make just $44,659 a year, one of the lowest salaries in the nation. “These officers risk their lives for $40,000 a year,” he said. “And this is not sustainable.”

Dallas Mayor Mike Rawling told CNN that the city has been working on a deal to raise salaries, but it won’t be finalized until September.

According to the Christian Science Monitor, the shooting has led to identity crisis in Dallas, the nation’s ninth-largest city. “It has knocked the breath out of us. It has. We are sad, we are overwhelmed, we are in disbelief, we are in mourning, and, yes, we are angry,” Senior Corporal Marcie St. John, a longtime partner of one of the officers killed, told the Monitor.