Dallas police chief's own son died in shootout with officers during he Massacre In Dallas

                                                     David Brown Dallas Police Chief
                                                       
The massacre in Dallas was the latest gun tragedy in the extraordinary life of the city's police chief David Brown.

Mr Brown, 55, lost both his brother, and first police partner, to gun violence.

Most painfully of all, six years ago, his own son shot dead a policeman and was then killed himself by other officers.

Mr Brown, who is black, grew up in a rough neighbourhood in South Dallas and describes himself as an "inner city kid".

Having seen firsthand the ravages of the crack cocaine epidemic in the early 1980s he became passionate about joining the police force.
In 1988 his first partner, Officer Walter Williams, was investigating a burglary when he was ambushed and fatally shot in the head.

Three years later his younger brother Kelvin was also shot in the head and killed by drug dealers. Mr Brown was devastated by the tragedies but forged on, spending most of the 1990s as a SWAT officer.

In 2010 he was made head of the Dallas Police Department and its 3,600 officers. Weeks later, on Father's Day, a gunman randomly killed a young father who was driving his family in a car.

A police officer rushed to the scene and was also shot and killed.

More police arrived and opened fire, fatally hitting the gunman with 12 bullets.
Incredibly, they then discovered the dead shooter was 27-year-old David Brown Jr, the chief's son.

The young man suffered from bipolar disorder and a post mortem showed he had been high on drugs including PCP.

Mr Brown went to visit the families of his son's victims and apologised to them in person.

At the time he said: "It hurts so deeply I cannot adequately express the sadness I feel inside my heart."

He added: "I can’t deny that’s a part of who I am. The families of victims, I know what they go through."

A fellow senior officer said: "He came through it. He's a true leader."

Mr Brown went on to introduce community policing methods with a focus on building good relations between officers and residents.

Mike Rawlings, the Dallas Mayor, said: "We are now one of the premiere community policing cities in the country.

"This year we have had fewer police officer related shootings than any large city in America. There's always room for improvement but we are best in class."