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Oshkosh vigil honors fallen Dallas officers, men killed by police

Vigil a place to "get the ball rolling"
Posted at 10:21 PM, Jul 14, 2016
and last updated 2016-07-14 23:21:53-04

OSHKOSH, WI -- A vigil on UW Oshkosh campus, bringing police and the community together, aimed to honor the five fallen Dallas officers.

It also remembered two men--Philando Castile, and Alton Sterling--shot, and killed, by police last week.
 
Organizers say tonight's vigil was about paying respect to those lives lost. But it's also meant to be a start to a larger conversation about change.
 
As a crowd gathers, the search for a solution is already underway.
 
"We really want to... get the ball rolling, you know? We want to start talking about the issues that are facing our country," says  UW Oshkosh Chief of Police Kurt Leibold.
 
According to Byron Adams, multicultural retention program manager for the campus, it starts with coming together, "and really try to figure out some ways that we could better connect, and network, to avoid this ever happening again." 
 
Names of the fallen Dallas officers could be seen sharing a table with two more, in the words of Chief Leibold, "the people that were shot during police incidents. It's all one big issue," he adds.
 
It's an issue that many agree is not black and white.
 
"But this is... a human being issue," says Adams.
 
"You know, it comes down to trust," adds Leibold.
 
Adams says it's time to take a closer look at "whatever laws we have in place, and maybe sensitivity training," suggests Adams, "things of this nature." 
 
Leibold says it's about getting back to the fundamentals of policing.
 
"It's really just  getting out of the squad cars, getting back into the neighborhoods, and talking to citizens again," says Leibold," partnering with citizens, and bringing the right resources to solve problems before they boil over." 
 
Along with that, organizers say it takes recognizing that any man's death diminishes us.
 
"It doesn't matter how it happened. We have 13,000 homicides on average a year in this country," says Leibold, "and those people can't be forgotten either." 
 
But it all starts with a conversation.
 
After the vigil, students, neighbors, and police all took time to shake hands, and hug one another.