Bob CollinsTwo trauma surgeons at Dallas’ Parkland Hospital — one white, one black — had something to say to the nation, so they asked CBS News to interview them this morning.
“When you look down on an operating table and you see someone who is hurt, we all bleed the same,” Dr. Alexander Eastman, also a lieutenant in the Dallas Police Department, said. “We’ve got to stop this.”
Dr. Brian Williams, who held a news conference yesterday and apologized for his tears today, said “I understand how black men feel with their encounters with police officers, but police officers are my friends and colleagues, so I’m straddling both worlds. I respect the police officers. I respect the job they do. Every day they go out with their lives on the lines, for us. They’re certainly overworked, underpaid, and unrecognized. I think that that should be addressed.
“But I also don’t want the fact that black men are dying in the hands of police ignored, overlooked, and dismissed. This is not blaming anyone. This is not choosing sides. This is about acknowledging that it is happening. It does exist and we need to talk about this to make some kind of change,” he said.
At his news conference yesterday, Dr. Williams said “this isn’t about just one night.”
