Ex-soldier kills 5 officers in Dallas, setting US on edge
DALLAS, TX -- A black Army veteran upset about fatal police shootings of black men and bent on exterminating white police officers killed five lawmen in a sniper attack that layered new anxiety onto a nation already divided about guns and how police treat African-Americans.
Dall suspect had rifles, bomb-making materials in home
Micah Johnson, who donned a protective vest and used a military-style semi-automatic rifle, was killed by a robot-delivered bomb after the Thursday evening shootings, authorities said. It marked the deadliest day for U.S. law enforcement since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
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In all, 12 officers were shot just a few blocks from where President John F. Kennedy was slain in 1963.
In Dallas, a memorial at police headquarters is growing to remember the officers who were killed and support those who remain in the hospital.
At the memorial today, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings expressed his own hope following the shooting. He said, "We're all human here, and I think that people feel each other's pain. And that's what makes it great, that's what makes you hopeful."
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A nurse described the scene after the shooting with Reporter Courtney Fischer, saying, "The officers all started coming in and you saw their emotions and their frustrations and just how sad they were and just really -- one officer was, you know, watching the news and what was happening out there and the emotions that he had because you know, those were his -- that was his team out there being shot at and he started crying when he was watching the news. I think that's where it really hit me that, oh my gosh, this could really be like Orlando. You know, we have to prepare for the worst and we don't know how many patients are going to be coming in, whether they be police officers or civilians. 'We have to be ready for this guys.'"
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In Georgia, Missouri and Tennessee, authorities said gun-wielding civilians also shot officers in individual attacks that came after two black men were killed this week in Louisiana and Minnesota. Two officers were wounded, one critically.
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"America is weeping," said Rep. G.K. Butterfield, head of the Congressional Black Caucus, reflecting mounting despair.
President Barack Obama and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott asked for the public's prayers. In a letter posted online Friday, Abbott said "every life matters" and urged Texans to come together.
"In the end," he wrote, "evil always fails."
Johnson, 25, had amassed a personal arsenal at his home in the Dallas suburb of Mesquite, including bomb-making materials, bulletproof vests, rifles, ammunition and a journal of combat tactics, authorities said Friday.
He followed black militant groups on social media, including one that posted a message Wednesday encouraging violence against police.
Johnson was a private first class with a specialty in carpentry and masonry. He served in the Army Reserve for six years starting in 2009 and did one tour in Afghanistan from November 2013 to July 2014, the military said.
Bradford Glendening, a military lawyer, said Johnson was accused of sexual harassment by a female solider in Afghanistan. Johnson was sent back to the U.S. with the recommendation he be removed from the Army with an "other than honorable" discharge, but he later got an honorable discharge, Glendening said.
In addition to the five slain officers, seven officers and two civilians were wounded.
The episode began Thursday evening while hundreds of people were gathered to protest the police killings of two more black men: Philando Castile, who was fatally shot near St. Paul, Minnesota, and Alton Sterling, who was shot in Louisiana after being pinned to the pavement by two white officers.
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After shooting at the Dallas officers, Johnson tried to take refuge in a parking garage and exchanged gunfire with police, Police Chief David Brown said.
The suspect described his motive during negotiations and said he acted alone and was not affiliated with any groups, Brown said. Police initially suspected more than one shooter.
He said he wanted to exterminate whites, "especially white officers," officials said.
In Washington, the nation's top law enforcement official, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, called for calm, saying the recent violence can't be allowed to "precipitate a new normal."
Lynch said protesters concerned about killings by police should not be discouraged "by those who use your lawful actions as a cover for their heinous violence."
The other attacks on police included a Georgia man who authorities said called 911 to report a break-in, then ambushed the officer who came to investigate. That sparked a shootout in which both the officer and suspect were wounded but expected to survive.
In suburban St. Louis, a motorist shot an officer at least once as the officer walked back to his car during a traffic stop, police said. The officer was hospitalized in critical condition.
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And in Tennessee, a man accused of shooting indiscriminately at passing cars and police on a highway told investigators he was angry about police violence against African-Americans, authorities said.
In Dallas, video showed protesters marching along a downtown street about half a mile from City Hall when shots erupted and the crowd scattered, seeking cover. Officers crouched beside vehicles, armored SWAT team vehicles arrived and a helicopter hovered overhead.
Marcus Carter, 33, was in the area when people started running toward him, yelling about gunshots. Carter said the first shot sounded like a firecracker. But then they proceeded in quick succession, with brief pauses between spurts of gunfire.
"It was breaks in the fire," he said. "It was a single shot and then after that single shot it was a brief pause. And then it was boom boom boom boom boom! Pause. Boom boom boom boom boom!"
The mayor said one of the wounded officers had a bullet go through his leg as three members of his squad were fatally shot around him.
"He felt that people don't understand the danger of dealing with a protest," said Rawlings, who spoke to the surviving officer. "And that's what I learned from this. We care so much about people protesting, and I think it's their rights. But how we handle it can do a lot of things. One of the things it can do is put our police officers in harm's way, and we have to be very careful about doing that."
Four of the dead were with the Dallas Police Department, a spokesman said.
One was a Dallas Area Rapid Transit officer. The agency said in a statement that 43-year-old officer Brent Thompson, a newlywed whose bride also works for the police force, was the first officer killed in the line of duty since the agency formed a police department in 1989.
"Our hearts are broken," the statement said.
Theresa Williams said one of the wounded civilians was her sister, 37-year-old Shetamia Taylor, who was shot in the right calf. She threw herself over her four sons, ages 12 to 17, when the shooting began.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
