U.S. military veteran believed
to be lone gunman in Dallas
police ambush
By Ernest Scheyder and Marice Richter
DALLAS (Reuters) - A black U.S. military
veteran of the Afghan war who said he
wanted to "kill white people" acted alone in a
sniper attack that killed five police officers
during a Dallas protest decrying police
shootings of black men, officials said on
Friday.
Seven other police officers and two civilians
were wounded in the ambush in downtown
Dallas on Thursday night, officials said. Police
killed the gunman, identified by authorities as
25-year-old Micah Johnson, with a bomb-
carrying robot after cornering him in a
parking garage, ending an hours-long
standoff.
A search of Johnson's home in the nearby
suburb of Mesquite found "bomb-making
materials, ballistic vests, rifles, ammunition
and a personal journal of combat tactics,"
Dallas police said in a report on Friday. Police
said Johnson had no previous criminal
history.
Dallas Mayor Michael Rawlings said Johnson
had written "manifestos" on military-style
tactics, and social media postings left by
Johnson showed he subscribed to a militant
black nationalist ideology.
Thursday's attack came at the end of an
otherwise peaceful march to protest police
killings of two black men this week in
Minnesota and Louisiana, the latest police
killings of black men over the last two years
that have triggered outrage, soul-searching
and debates over the role of race.
In Dallas, hundreds of screaming
demonstrators ran for safety as police officers
patrolling the rally took cover, believing
initially that they had come under attack by
several shooters.
By late afternoon on Friday, however,
investigators had concluded that Johnson,
armed with a rifle, was the lone gunman.
“At this time, there appears to have been one
gunman, with no known links to or
inspiration from any international terrorist
organization,” U.S. Homeland Security
Secretary Jeh Johnson told reporters in New
York.
In Dallas, Rawlings said the shooting "came
from one building at different levels from this
suspect."
One man was arrested on "unrelated weapons
charges" at the scene, and several people
were detained for questioning, but police said
they were released by day's end on Friday.
Still, Governor Greg Abbott and other officials
said they were looking for evidence of any
possible co-conspirators.
The ambush marked the highest death toll for
U.S. police in the line duty from a single
event since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
GUNMAN ANGRY ABOUT POLICE KILLINGS
The attack was certain to complicate rising
tensions between minority communities and
law enforcement following a string of high-
profile killings of unarmed black men at the
hands of police across the country over the
past two years, giving rise to the Black Lives
Matter protest movement.
The violence came just over a week before the
start of the Republican National Convention
in Cleveland, where Donald Trump is
expected to become the party's official
nominee, and police in Cleveland on Friday
tightened their security plan for the
convention.
Other police departments across the country,
including New York, Chicago and St. Louis,
responded to the attack by requiring officers
to patrol in pairs rather than alone.
Thursday's attack was especially devastating
for the people of Dallas, a city that struggled
for decades to heal from the scars left by the
1963 assassination of President John F.
Kennedy, blocks away in Dealey Plaza.
Dallas Police Chief David Brown called the
ambush "a well-planned, well-thought-out,
evil tragedy." He added, "We are determined
to not let this person steal this democracy
from us."
During lengthy negotiations with police, the
gunman told police he was angry about the
Louisiana and Minnesota killings, Brown told
reporters.
"The suspect said he was upset at white
people. The suspect stated that he wanted to
kill white people, especially white officers,"
said Brown, who is African-American.
A profile of Johnson's political inclinations
also began to emerge. He posted a rant
against white people on a black nationalist
Facebook group called Black Panther Party
Mississippi last Saturday, denouncing the
lynching and brutalizing of black people.
"Why do so many whites (not all) enjoy
killing and participating in the death of
innocent beings," Johnson wrote in a post
above a graphic video of a whale-killing,
comparing it to the treatment of black people
in the United States.
In what appeared to be his own Facebook
page, Johnson was portrayed with the red,
black and green flag sometimes known as the
Black Liberation flag. His profile photo
showed him with his clenched fist in the air
in the familiar Black Power salute.
The U.S. Army said Johnson, 25, had served as
a private first class in the Army Reserve and
was deployed to Afghanistan from November
2013 to July 2014. It said Johnson served from
March 2009 to April 2015 and was a carpentry
and masonry specialist with the 420th
Engineering Brigade based in Texas.
"HEARTACHE AND DEVASTATION"
Details on how the shootings unfolded
remained unclear. Video of the attack taken
by a witness shows a man carrying an
assault-style weapon, first crouching then
charging at and shooting another person who
appeared to be wearing a uniform. That
person then collapsed to the ground. Reuters
could not immediately confirm the
authenticity of the video.
The Rev. Jeff Hood, an organizer of Thursday
night's protest, said he had been chatting with
some of the police officers on the street when
gunfire erupted.
"I saw what I believe were two police officers
that went down. I didn't know what to do,"
Hood told reporters on Friday.
President Barack Obama, in Poland for a
NATO summit, called the Dallas shootings "a
vicious, calculated and despicable attack on
law enforcement." Obama, who has been
stymied by the Republican-led Congress in his
bid for new gun control laws, planned to visit
Dallas early next week, at the mayor's
invitation, the White House said.
As Dallas reeled from a night of carnage,
police came under fire in three other states.
A man in Tennessee opened fire on a
highway, killing a woman and grazing a
police officer with a bullet on Thursday,
because he was troubled by incidents
involving black people and law enforcement,
authorities said on Friday. Police officers also
were wounded in shootings in Missouri and
Georgia on Friday, though the motives in both
of those incidents was unknown.
Largely peaceful protests unfolded around the
United States after the police shooting of
Philando Castile, a 32-year-old black man, on
Wednesday, during a traffic stop near St.
Paul, Minnesota. A day earlier, police in
Baton Rouge, Louisiana, shot dead Alton
Sterling, 37, while responding to a call
alleging he had threatened someone with a
gun.
Both Hillary Clinton, the presumptive
Democratic presidential nominee, and Trump
canceled campaign events for Friday following
the attack.
(Reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee,
Eric M. Johnson in Seattle, Jon Herskovitz in
Austin, Texas, Letitia Stein in Tampa, Florida,
Laila Kearney and Gina Cherelus in New
York, Fiona Ortiz in Chicago and Mark
Hosenball in London; Writing by Jon
Herskovitz and Steve Gorman; Editing by Will
Dunham and Leslie Adler)