NATCHEZ — Local law enforcement officials said Friday they’re saddened to hear of recent killings of law enforcement officers around the country, but that locally, officers are working to foster better community relations.

Their response comes a day after an Army veteran — who was killed by Dallas police following the sniper slayings of five officers during a protest march — told authorities that he was upset about the police shootings of two black men earlier this week and wanted to exterminate whites, “especially white officers.”

The man identified as 25-year-old Micah Johnson was killed by police using a robot-delivered bomb after the shootings, which marked the deadliest day for U.S. law enforcement since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. In all, 12 officers were shot.

The Dallas massacre follows the late June killing of a Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office deputy during a pedestrian stop.

The shooting in Dallas came as protesters gathered in reaction to the deaths of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge and Philando Castile in a suburb of St. Paul, Minn.

Castile was shot Wednesday while in a car with a woman and a child. The aftermath of the shooting was livestreamed in a Facebook video that has been widely shared on social media and broadcast on national TV newscasts. A day earlier, Alton Sterling was shot in Louisiana after being pinned to the pavement by two white officers. That, too, was captured on a cellphone video.

Adams County Sheriff Travis Patten said Friday the flag at the Adams County Sheriff’s Office would fly at half-staff until the Dallas officers are buried, and said, “There is too much death on both sides.”

He initially responded to the shootings Thursday with a social media post saying recent events were, “truly disturbing for me to see what happened in Baton Rouge, Minnesota and what is happening right now in Dallas.”

Patten said law enforcement officials need to do a better part on building relationships with the community, but that citizens need to remember that officers are people, too.

“Our main goal is to protect the public, protect the Constitution and go home at the end of the day,” Patten said. “I am not telling you to be silent if you feel you have been wronged, but killing people is not the way to go.”

Patten said he urges the public to cooperate with law enforcement instead of “holding court on the side of the road,” but if they feel like an officer has wronged them to pursue the chain of command and even approach civil rights groups later rather than escalate a situation.

“Don’t pull the race card,” he said. “Leave color out of it. This is not a one-race issue, it is an American issue.”

But for the most part, Patten said, “I continuously credit the people of Adams County for being better than that. If we as a community stand together putting race, religion and other things aside to work together as one, we can prevent that stuff from ever happening here.”

Natchez Police Chief Daniel White said the keys to keeping citizen and police interactions within their proper parameters is for officers to regularly interact with and meet with citizens.

“It’s all about community policing, where people in the community know the police and trust the police,” he said. “It is going to take the community and the police working together to try to solve these problems.

“It’s about communicating on their levels, letting them know that we are just like them, that we are on their side and that we stand shoulder to shoulder with them in this fight against crime — and that we need the citizens just as much as they need us.”

Vidalia Police Chief Joey Merrill said after getting word of the shootings he put out word to his captains to let everybody know to be mindful of their surroundings.

“We have briefed all the officers about officer safety issues, and everybody is on 24-hour call,” he said. “But I want the public to know that we don’t have any threats in this area at this time, and we are just being mindful of the situation, and I want everybody in Vidalia to feel safe.”

Vidalia officers are “part of our community, and they interact with people the entire time they are working,” Merrill said.

“They care about our community and about the people in the community, and they are going to do all they can to protect our community.”

 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.