Black Lives Matter movement 'hijacked' by snipers who shot officers dead during peaceful protest in Dallas

The city of Dallas is in shock. So is the nation.

The long-simmering American conflict over race, politics, policing and guns has created the perfect storm

After two more disturbing videos emerged showing white police officers killing black men in Minnesota and Louisiana, the anger in their communities is boiling over. Yet the protests were peaceful.

The most powerful weapon black people have - apart from the social media technology to catalogue the police shootings - is the moral outrage.

Black Lives Matter is the civil rights movement of our era.

Now that has been horribly hijacked in the Dallas night by snipers targeting police officers.

The whole conversation will now be distorted - the political partisans will take the vital American conversation about policing in a more ominous and confrontational direction.

The toxic politics of the 2016 presidential campaign will feed into the anger. Black and white Americans will talk past each other. Politicians will exploit it for their own purposes. Donald Trump will prove once more that he can benefit from tragedy, not rise to the occasion.

The President - who has this morning described the ambush as "vicious and despicable" - will try and soothe the racial wounds. But the reality is that America's first black president is a spectator to the racial divide that continues to haunt this country.