When Portland-area resident Richard Wideman heard the news last week that five Dallas police officers had been fatally shot and seven other officers were wounded by a lone African American sniper, he couldn't stop watching the TV news.

He went to his Raleigh Hills office the next day and couldn't concentrate, so he grabbed a whiteboard and scrawled a message stating "Hug A Police Officer Today." His sign also urged drivers who passed him along busy Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway and Scholls Ferry Road to thank police.

Wideman is black. An off-duty Washington County Sheriff's deputy who stopped to give him a hug is white.

They both started crying.

"It's not about race," Wideman told The Oregonian/OregonLive on Sunday, of his decision to hold the sign. "Asian lives matter. Hispanic lives matter. ..White lives matter. Black lives matter. Police officers' lives matter. ... Everyone's life matters."

Wideman is one of many across the nation and in the Portland metro area -- 1,600 miles away from the devastation in Dallas -- who have gone to extra lengths over the past few days to let police know they're appreciated for potentially putting their lives on the line everyday. In Oregon, the public has given officers freshly brewed coffee, baked goods, fruit and handwritten notes. They've also tucked words of thanks under the windshield wipers of police cruisers and expressed their gratitude face to face.

In Oregon City, someone wove red, white and blue paper flowers into a fence next to the police department. In Ashland, members of the Black Lives Matter movement dropped by the department with flowers and words of gratitude. In Cornelius, police were so touched by a heart-shaped rock at Starbucks with the words "Woo Hoo Police" painted on it, that a photo of the rock later appeared on the department's Facebook page.

"Thank you for all you do!!" wrote Karen LaFont Osborn on the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office Facebook page. "I pray that we may start acting out of love and equality rather than hate and fear. May our great nation finally be drawn together as one working together."

Some commenters called for a more productive conversation on how to avoid more shooting deaths and heal animosities that have turned into extreme hate by a few, such as the gunman in the Dallas attacks.

Authorities say the gunman announced he wanted to kill white people, especially white officers. He opened fire Thursday, during a protest over the fatal police shootings of a black man in Louisiana on Tuesday and another black man in Minnesota on Wednesday. The deaths were the latest in a string of shootings of black men.

"You ladies and gents stay safe; calm minds will prevail," wrote a commenter, Heath Curry, to the Clackamas County Sheriff's page. "Don't let this tragedy change your hearts, what you do every day is dangerous, courageous but what people don't always see is the compassion, humility and discipline that goes into being a police officer."

Sgt. Bob Ray, a spokesman for the Washington County Sheriff's Office, said it's "enlightening" to see support for his line of work during this difficult time in the nation.

"It's a rough job," Ray said. "Typically, we see people at their worst. ... When something bad happens, most people are running from it and you'll see law enforcement running the opposite direction, trying to fix it."

Portland police assistant chief of operations Chris Uehara said even though he's been out-of-state on vacation, he's received lots of emails and text messages of support from community members over the past few days. He said he was particularly touched by one from the Q Center's co-directors, who had been working through their own grief in the LBGTQ community over the shooting deaths of 49 in an Orlando gay club last month.

"For them to reach out to us during our tragedy is powerful, touching and meaningful for all of us," Uehara said. "It is a powerful testament about our relationship and the steps we are all taking to improve trust and legitimacy in the community."

Erin Martinek is the Washington County deputy who pulled over Friday to accept a hug from Wideman, the man holding the sign at Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway and Scholls Ferry Road. Martinek said she had been feeling sad all evening Thursday and all morning Friday, but she felt a lot better after encountering Wideman, a stranger.

"It just meant the world to me that someone is just showing so much compassion for police officers," Martinek said. "All of us are human and need support."

Martinek said that's why she snapped a photo of Wideman, and shared it with others.

"I'm going to print off the picture and put it in my locker," she said. "Because he changed my day, my whole week."

-- Aimee Green

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