A Dallas officer’s bravery was captured vividly on camera during one of the city’s darkest hours.
Robert Moore, a Freelance photographer, was in Dallas photographing the rally on July 7 when the shooting started. Moore then spent the next two hours crouched behind a parked car beside an armed officer who acted as a human shield for him.
Moore was able to catch several shots of the officer’s heroic deed in the event, photos that have since been shared over 7,000 times on Facebook.
“I spent two hours last night crouching behind a car at Lamar and Main, trying to ”get small! get small!“ Much of it with this guy. I don’t know his name but I won’t forget him,” Moore wrote in the photo caption.
After it was declared safe to leave, the officer walked Moore to the edge of the police perimeter while continuing to protect him with a gun in hand.
Moore later reflected on the man who ensured his life to the The Dallas Morning News.
“I am shoulder to shoulder with somebody who is calm, who is collected,” Moore said. “He’s on. He’s very much professional.”
“This is a guy in a situation none of us would want to be in, but he signed up to be in it and he’s doing it,” Moore added.
“I’ve never been in a situation where one of the people was serving me so directly and watching out for me,” Moore also told ABC News. “How do you thank somebody like that?”
Moore had not wanted to name the man out of respect for his privacy, but the man was later identified as 25-year-old James Dylan Smith by somebody who recognized the officer.
Ashley Boling, a family friend of the Smiths, told the Dallas News that Smith grew up in Rowlett and had been on the Dallas police force for just a few years.
She says that they didn’t know Smith was under fire at the time of the shootings, but knew that he would be OK.
