Another police officer was cruelly slain Friday night, this time in Houston, Texas. Deputy Darren Goforth, 47, served in the Harris County Sheriff’s office for a decade until he was shot in the back while pumping gas at a Chevron station near Houston. Local law enforcement are blaming the “Black Lives Matter” movement for creating the anti-cop culture that led to his death.
CNN provided details on the “execution-style killing:”
Deputy Goforth was refueling his vehicle and returning to his car from inside the convenience store when, unprovoked, a man walked up behind him and literally shot him to death," he said.
He was shot multiple times from behind and then fell to the ground, where the suspect fired at him some more, said Deputy Thomas Gilliland, a spokesman for the sheriff's office.
Harris County Sheriff Ron Hickman said the attack was unprovoked and that Goforth’s only sin was that he wore the police officers' badge.
The motive in the shooting, which Hickman described as "senseless and cowardly," is still unclear. But Goforth appears to have been targeted "because he wore a uniform," the sheriff said.
"We found no other motive or indication that it was anything other than that," said Hickman, adding that he doesn't believe the suspect and Goforth knew each other.
Hickman expanded on the deadly effects of the “Black Lives Matter” movement, which he said has generated an environment that puts police officers in danger in the same communities they signed up to serve and protect. The controversial movement was born in the wake of recent cop-related deaths involving white police officers and African-Americans. The tragic cases of Michael Brown, Freddie Gray, and Sandra Bland, to name a few, have sparked outrage in the African-American community and resulted in violent protests against “police brutality.”
At the height of racial tension between cops and local communities in New York City, two NYPD officers were murdered in cold blood in December while sitting in their squad car in Brooklyn. In Baltimore, policemen had to dodge rocks and watch their cop cars erupt in flames.
“We’ve heard black lives matter, all lives matter,” Harris County Sheriff Ron Hickman told reporters at a press conference. “Well, cops’ lives matter, too.”
Harris County District Attorney Devon Anderson agrees, remarking that while some of these tragic cop-related deaths could and should have been avoided, it is unfair to use them to define police as tyrannical, for the majority aim to keep communities safe.
The Houston shooting suspect, Shannon J. Miles, is currently being arraigned for capital murder.“That does not mean there should be open warfare declared on law enforcement,” Anderson said. “What happened last night is an assault on the fabric of society.”