When Darren Goforth, a white deputy officer, was ambushed and fatally shot Friday night, allegedly by a black man at a gas station outside Houston, Harris County Sheriff Ron Hickman wasted no time in linking the incident to the ongoing Black Lives Matter protests of police brutality.
"We've heard black lives matter; all lives matter. Well, cops' lives matter too," Hickman said Saturday. "At any point where the rhetoric ramps up to the point where calculated cold-blooded assassination of police officers happen(s), this rhetoric has gotten out of control."
Firearms-related deaths of law enforcement officers in 2015 are down from the same period last year, Reuters reports.
Hickman called the shooting of the 10-year veteran "unprovoked." Deputies arrested 30-year-old Shannon Miles on Saturday.