MESQUITE, TEXAS / The short life of Micah Johnson was marked by disappointment and inadequacy. For six years, he served as a US army reservist, including a tour of duty in Afghanistan. But any aspirations to serve his country ended in his disgrace.
The 25-year-old had friends but most of them were on Facebook. And on a hot summer evening last Thursday in Dallas, his resentment boiled over into murderous intent culminating in the death of six people. Five were Dallas police officers, all killed by Johnson. The sixth was Johnson himself, blown up by a police robot after hours of negotiations proved fruitless.
Within hours, the picture began to emerge of a deeply troubled young man with a distorted perception of the world around him. Having joined the army reserves in 2009, he held the rank of private first class but his military career came to a humiliating end when he was sent home from Afghanistan in May 2014 for sexually harassing a female soldier, which led her to seek a protective order to keep him away from her and her family and stop him contacting her.
At his court martial, the army called for him to be dishonourably discharged — a request that was “highly unusual” since the court usually orders the accused to have counselling before considering more drastic steps. But Johnson’s behaviour was so reprehensible — and this according to his own defence lawyer — that it seems the army simply wanted him out.
“In his case it was apparently so egregious, it was not just the act itself,” said Bradford Glendening, the military lawyer who represented Johnson. “I’m sure that this guy was the black sheep of his unit.”
Johnson was supposed to be kicked out of the army in September 2014 but instead he left some months later with an honourable discharge, thanks to an administrative mistake.
He returned to Mesquite to the two-storey brick house in a quiet residential neighbourhood where he lived with his mother, Delphene, and other family members. His parents separated when Johnson was a child, divorcing in 1996, and his father James subsequently married a teacher, Donna Ferrier, who is white.
Details of how Johnson spent the next — and as it turned out, the last — two years of his life are still sketchy. But his social media history points to a growing fascination with black militant groups including the African-American Defense League, which earlier in the week posted a message on Facebook encouraging violence against police in response to the shooting by a police officer of a black man in Louisiana. The message, which was attributed to Dr Mauricelm-Lei Millere, a leader of the organisation, read: “The Pig has shot and killed Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana! You and I know what we must do and I don’t mean marching, making a lot of noise, or attending conventions. We must ‘Rally The Troops!’ It is time to visit Louisiana and hold a barbecue.”
Johnson also “liked” on Facebook the New Black Panther Party, a group founded in Dallas whose leaders have “long expressed virulently anti-white and anti-Semitic opinions,” according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. The Nation of Islam and the Black Riders Liberation Party also attracted Johnson.
He logged on to sites which focus on the history and accomplishments of African-Americans, such as Black Love Matters, the Nubian Rootz Cultural Centre and I Love Black Archaeologist, a web series whose main character uses a time machine to visit famous black people. He posted pictures on Facebook of himself wearing a dashiki — the colourful tunic-style shirt commonly worn by West African men — with his fist raised over the words “Black Power”
His profile picture featured the red, black and green Pan-African flag and his Facebook account also contained information about Richard Griffin, also known as Professor Griff and a member of rap group Public Enemy. The group’s songs are known for their politically-charged lyrics while Professor Griff is known to embrace a “radical form of Afrocentrism.” although he stated on his Facebook page on Friday that he does “not advocate killing cops.”
Away from his computer screen, however, Johnson was a solitary figure. Fellow students at John Horn High School in Mesquite remember him as “stand-offish”. One, Sharon Carter recalled, “ He kept to himself.”
Johnson preferred to use his middle name, Xavier, or simply X, which was what his friend Israel Cooper called him. The pair played basketball together in a local park, but Johnson was obsessive. “He would be out there for eight hours, like it was his job,” said Mr Cooper, 19. Johnson had always struck him as educated but not political or violent, although a week earlier he had ranted about the behaviour of white law enforcement officers towards black people.
“He was upset. He said white cops are just slaying black people, basically genocide, he said. “This is getting out of hand.”
As with his Facebook affiliations, Johnson’s private world told a different story. When the police raided his home on Friday, they found bomb-making materials, ballistic vests, rifles, ammunitions and a personal journal of combat tactics. One neighbour knew Johnson kept guns at home because some had been stolen in a break-in last year. “But I never saw him outside with a gun,” she said. “He was calm, protective. He’d ask me if I was OK when I was on my own.”
During the hours that the police spent trying to negotiate with Johnson, he told them that he was “upset” about Black Lives Matter, the protest movement which emerged after the 2012 killing of Trayvon Martin, an African-American teenager shot by a neighbourhood watch volunteer in Florida. Even before the two fatal police shootings of black men in Louisiana and Minnesota last week, he had railed against the police for “committing genocide.”
From his hideout in a garage, he warned the police that he had planted bombs “all over the place in this garage and downtown,” adding ominously, “The end is coming.”
He said he wanted to kill white people and especially white police officers.
At 8.45pm from a rooftop in Dallas, Micah Johnson made good on his wish.
*Associated Press
foreign.desk@thenational.ae
