DALLAS - This is a city that still aches, that still deals with stages of grief and disbelief that don't go away just because one day turns into another. This is a city that needs more time than what's been available the past 12 days to get over what happened to the people sworn to protect it.
And so, for now, barricades wrap around Lamar, Main, Market and Elm street, surrounding and protecting the crime scene that is El Centro College, a previously anonymous community college that became the site of an attack that killed five police officers and injured seven others.
On Lamar Street, a large man with a large gun stands watch and encourages rubberneckers to move along and respect what happened between the columns that line the sidewalk outside the college.
"He has to be law enforcement," said a woman who works at a nearby hotel, who was working an overnight shift July 7, who was supposed to begin classes at El Centro on July 11, but is taking courses online now instead. "They're the only people allowed behind the barricade."
On Sunday night, hours after three Louisiana police officers were killed in another ambush, hours before the start of the Big 12's two-day preseason media event here, the outside of the Omni hotel flashed a message in gigantic capital blue letters: ENOUGH. Inside the same building Monday morning, Kansas coach David Beaty began an opening statement with a personal note.
"My heart hurts for the Dallas communities and for communities across the country that are suffering and in pain right now," said Beaty, the second-season head coach who is renowned for recruiting Texas but is also the son of a Dallas police officer.
His father was holding Lee Harvey Oswald when he was killed by Jack Ruby. B.L. Beaty was talking to Oswald when he was loaded onto a gurney.
"He's in that picture," Beaty said of the notorious photograph of Ruby shooting Oswald. "He's standing right behind Lee Harvey Oswald as the guy points the gun to his stomach. If it would have went through him, it would have hit my dad."
None of this makes sense to Beaty, be it the tragedy in Dallas or in Louisiana, the many events that have come to redefine the relationship between the country and its police or the growing list of attacks upon innocent people in Belgium, Turkey, France and a list of other places that will never be the same.
The solution, he says, is right in front of us, and yet too few people are moving toward it.
"I pray that we will begin to listen to one another, love one another and get to the hard work of healing our nation, to the issues that we're facing right now," he said. "I believe that college football can be an example in the midst of our struggles in America. Young men from all walks of life, different backgrounds coming together, listening to one another, working hard together, learning from one another, fighting together for a common goal."
This is not coach speak coming from a showcase designed for coaches to speak or, in Beaty's, case speak out. This is reality for some of the people in attendance Monday and again Tuesday, and even commissioner Bob Bowlsby understands the Big 12 or any other school or league within the NCAA may witness something that allows participants to weigh in on these current events.
"It may be student-athlete activism that comes into play at an event or around an event," he said. "It could be civil disobedience of one sort or another that's unrelated to athletic participants but has an intersection with one of our football games or basketball games or those kinds of things.
"We have talked about what is the institutional responsibility versus what is the conference's responsibility and how we go about separating those things. But I think that there is every possibility that we could see some of that."
That is yet unknown. It's supposition. The two days we spend here are entirely about projecting what might be. But then you come across an exception. You meet reality.
He is a vow to not merely affect change but to be the change. His mother worked for 32 years in the Dallas Police Department and retired in 2013 as deputy chief. His father was an assistant chief in Shreveport, La., and the job meant so much to him that he retired multiple times.
He is Justis Nelson, the aptly named cornerback for Texas Tech who wants to start his law enforcement career walking a beat on these very streets and fixing what's gone wrong.
"I think the biggest issue has been just the misunderstanding and the lack of communication," said Nelson, who was indeed named for the career path of his parents, Sherryl Scott and Marshall Nelson. "I think you can't put everything on law enforcement. It's a mixture of both. The community has to do its part as well. I feel like we just need to come together as a nation and just grow."
Nelson couldn't turn off the television the night it all happened here. He figured he was awake until 2 a.m. Maybe longer. When he was able to sleep, he only fit in a few hours before waking up the next morning and calling his mother. She's close friends with the current chief, David Brown. Nelson said his mom knew some of the officers who lost their lives.
They talked about all of that as well as the problems we cannot escape and still cannot solve. They agreed opposites need to come together, if only to start the process of closing the divide. The solution is complex, more involved than conversations between adversaries, but it needs a place to start.
This is Nelson's future, and it's been on his mind for as long as he can remember. Before he realized football could pave the way in college, he wanted to go to Sam Houston State.
"Their criminal justice program is one of the top ones in the country," he said.
He took a detour to join the Red Raiders, but he hasn't abandoned his goal. Nelson has interned with the Lubbock police, shadowing a detective and riding along on stops, jail visits and interviews and even getting a look at the forensic side of the job.
There are times he walks around a place where he should feel comfortable and notices his teammates get quiet because they know the locker room cop is in their presence. He understands not all of the people he shares that space with trust the police.
"They're playing around, but I always tell them I'm going to be the first police officer they like," he said.
That's his goal. He believes he can reach the FBI or some lofty level like that later in his career, but at the outset, he wants to change the dynamic that's been allowed to exist and cause such trouble. Everything that's happened, everything that threatens to continue to happen, could have talked him out of it. It has instead convinced him of the particular purpose he can serve here.
"I've always stayed pretty consistent with that," he said. "This hasn't affected my view at all. I want a safe community for everybody. I want a safe community for kids, for adults, for anybody. The events? That's part of the job. I haven't wavered in any way. I've always had a passion to be a police officer. It's always been interesting to me. I'm still looking forward to it."