Mother Who Took Bullet for Sons in Dallas Shooting Advises America to ‘Learn to Love’

The woman who helped protect her four sons from bullets Thursday during an ambush-style shooting on police at a protest march in Dallas implored Americans to “learn to love” as they leave behind a tumultuous week.

She had initially taken her sons to the rally so that they could “see unity and how we can come together to make a difference,” Shetamia Taylor, 37, told “Good Morning America” today from her home in Garland, Texas, where she is recovering from a bullet wound in her leg.

The peaceful rally was in protest of the police shootings of two black men – in Louisiana and Minnesota – but turned into chaos when a gunman shot five police officers to death.

Taylor, who was shot during the attack, this morning stressed her admiration for police officers, and asked people to try to see the humanity in them.

“As my son stated, you know, these are isolated incidents,” Taylor said of police shootings. “Unfortunately [the occurrence of the incidents], is frequent but we have to learn to love. We have to learn to understand that policemen and policewomen are not robots.”

Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images Shetamia Taylor gets emotional as her sons tell reporters of their account of the deadly night when a gunman attacked and killed 5 police officers and wounding 7 others, including Taylor, during a press conference in Dallas, Texas, July 10, 2016.

On Sunday, Taylor broke down in tears as she described the Dallas shooting in harrowing detail during a news conference at the Dallas hospital before she checking out later in the day. She referred repeatedly to the police who shielded her and her four sons as “heroes” during her statements to the media and, in one affecting moment, she recalled hearing that her children had survived the shooting from her hospital bed, only to overhear an officer tell another officer that a colleague had died a moment later.

“I saw an officer tell another officer that an officer didn’t make it, and I [was] celebrating my kids,” she said Sunday, stopping to hang her head and weep. “[Celebrating] my kids being alive.

“It hurt,” she said, referring to news of the officer’s death.

Taylor’s message this morning was one of hope, and shared values.

“We all have so much more in common than I think that we all want to admit,” she said.