"Am I dying?"

Never in my life have I experienced or seen anything like this except on TV, and to be in the midst of it, it's shocking and heartbreaking," Mills said. "As we were coming down Fourth Street, we noticed a bunch of lights. As we came on through, (Roberts) told me to turn around because she saw somebody laying on the ground.

So I backed up. That's when we noticed the officer was down. We just saw that one, but in the course of me being on the phone with 9-1-1, I turned and I saw another officer across the street rolling on the ground. (Roberts) ran across the street to check on him. He wasn't all the way alert but he asked her, "Am I dying? I know I'm dying. Just hand me my walkie-talkie."

~ Tamika Mills on encountering the scene where two Hattiesburg, Miss. police officers were gunned down during the course of a traffic stop.^[1]

These are the two officers who lost their lives on May 9, 2015:

Benjamin Deen, 34.

Liquori Tate, 25.

Officer Tate posted on Facebook last year: "I graduated the Police Academy today. I am now a Police Officer. I would like to thank God, the Police Academy, the Police Department, my family, friends, and love ones."

Arrested in connection with this crime were (L-R) Marvin Banks, 26, Joanie Calloway, 22, and Curtis Banks, 29.

Another individual, Cornelius Clark, has been arrested in connection with these murders. Two others have also been arrested, Douglas Diquan McPhail, 21, and Anquanette L. Alexander, 19. Both have been charged with obstruction of justice.

Perhaps we could tone down the police-as-vicious-thugs rhetoric. Our police stand between civilization and the law of the jungle. These admirable and eminently human individuals were gunned down for no reason whatsoever. One's heart breaks at their words and the loss of their lives. Our enemy is not the police but barbarism. The people who are out of control in our country are those among us who are intent to hampering enforcement of the law, and enabling and encouraging anarchy. Obama and Attorney General Lynch, neither of whom gives a damn about the Constitution, are part of the problem.

Notes
^[1] "2 Hattiesburg officers killed; 4 suspects in custody." The Clarion-Ledger, 5/11/15. Contributing to this article were Sam R. Hall, Therese Apel and Sarah Fowler for The Clarion-Ledger; Tim Doherty and Jason Munz for the Hattiesburg American; and the Associated Press.