Local Voices React to Dallas Shootings

• Story by Alex Newman and Alison Bauter

Five law enforcement officers were shot dead and seven others wounded in Dallas Thursday night when a sniper opened fire during a rally to protest the killing of two black men by police. In the wake of the tragedy, several prominent Massachusetts voices took to social media to grieve for those slain and express solidarity with the Dallas Police Department.

Among them were law enforcement agencies, first responders and state representatives.

• See also: Dallas Shootings: Snipers Kill 5 Officers, Wound 7, During Protest Over Police Killings Of Black Men: Updated

Police departments from Boston, Newton, Seekonk, Newburyport, Chelmsford, Norwell and Danvers, as well as Massachusetts State Police and the Middlesex Sheriff's Department, sent out condolences on Twitter and Facebook Thursday night:

The tragedy unfolded in Texas as many in Massachusetts were already in bed. State politicians, many of whom had spent the day railing against gun violence in Washington, D.C., had no immediate response.

Representatives Seth Moulton and Katherine Clark have been at the forefront of Democrats' gun-regulation push, and they responded with raw pain and horror late Thursday:

Boston Mayor Martin Walsh released the following statement Friday morning.

My thoughts are with the Dallas officers who were killed last night, and their families, and I'm praying for fast recovery for the injured. I unequivocally condemn violence against law enforcement officers. Whatever motivated this horrific attack, we should do all we can as a community and a nation to prevent it from inflaming existing tensions around police interactions. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, violence solves no problem but is "a descending spiral ending in destruction for all." We can and we must work together to end all the deadly violence afflicting our country.

Image via Seekonk Police Department