Lubbock resident Ricky Wilks organized a vigil for the Dallas officers who lost their lives in the line of duty. A moment of silence was held for twelve minutes at the Lubbock Regional Public Safety Memorial in Leroy Elmore Park.
“When you’ve got a group of people that are running in front of gun fire to save people that are protesting against you that takes a special kind of person and I think takes some recognition and they need to be remembered for what they did,” Wilks said.
One resident in attendance, Emma Hernandez, is a mother of a police officer in San Antonio and said she hopes to travel to Dallas with him to give support for families who lost loved ones.
“Our grief never stops because our children, no matter how old they are, they still love in our hearts,” Hernandez said. “We lose touch of their hands but we never lose touch of their hearts.”
About thirty people showed support by attending of the vigil Friday evening. Local pastors said this was an opportunity to build on the relationship the community has with local law enforcement.
“How long before it actually gets into the front yard, how long is it before it’s on our actual doorstep,” Pastor and School Board Trustee Bill Stubblefield said. “And I think this kind of opportunity that we have here today, we have a police department that loves taking a proactive approach to a situation. and there’s actually been talks that we’ve been having at the table about how to improve race relations. That’s the elephant in the room that nobody likes to talk about, that we have to address, in order to keep the peace and the civility that we have.”
Lubbock Police Chief Greg Stevens said the department will continue to build on relationships with the community to better serve them and the entire city of Lubbock.
