DALLAS // A gunman killed on Friday after five police officers were shot dead in Dallas was an army reservist who served in Afghanistan.
The US army says Micah Xavier Johnson, 25, was from Mesquite, Texas and that he served as a private first class with the military occupation of carpenter and mason. His army service lasted from March 2009 to April 2015 and he served one tour in Afghanistan from November 2013 to July 2014. Johnson had no criminal record or ties to extremist groups.
Dallas police chief David Brown said the gunman who opened fire on Dallas police officers during a protest against police brutality had told negotiators that he wanted to kill white policemen. “He said he was upset about the recent police shootings. The suspect said he was upset at white people. He stated he wanted to kill white people, especially white officers,” said Mr Brown. He also said the gunman had told him he was no affiliated to any organised group.
A photograph of the suspect which was broadcast on television showed a black man with a closely trimmed beard, his fist raised and wearing an African-style print tunic. As well as killing five officers, he also wounded seven others. Two civilians were also shot and wounded in the chaotic fray late on Thursday.
The gathering in Dallas that day of several hundred demonstrators was one of many across the United States in protest over the fatal shootings of two black men by police in recent days.
The shootings sparked chaotic scenes of people running for their lives not far from the site where president John F Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. Just as the march was winding down, at around 9pm, the first shots rang out, sending the demonstrators scrambling for cover.
Describing the panic, witness Cory Hughes said, “There was blacks, whites, Latinos, everybody. There was a mixed community here protesting. And this just came out of nowhere. It’s almost like the gunshots were coming at us. It was complete pandemonium.”
The primary suspect who would later be named as Micah Johnson was killed in a tense showdown with police in a parking garage, by a bomb robot sent in by officers after an exchange of gunfire and hours of negotiations. The mayor of Dallas Mike Rawlings said the robot bomb was deemed the best way to end the standoff.
“He was saying he was going to take everybody out. He threatened other bombs and we felt that was the safest way to get in and it was,” Rawlings said.
Three other suspects are in custody – a woman and two men who were found with camouflage bags in a car – and the mayor admitted they were “not being real cooperative”.
On dramatic video footage, taken by witnesses, deafening bursts of gunfire and police sirens can be heard with a woman’s voice crying, “Oh my God. There are people on the ground. I hope they’re just hiding.”
Parts of downtown Dallas were closed off for hours, with no bus or rail service and flight restrictions in effect.
Outside Parkland Hospital, police saluted the fellow officers who lost their lives or were wounded in the shooting. Other people later joined the officers for an impromptu vigil.
The shootings in Dallas represent the single biggest loss of life for law enforcement in America since the September 11 attacks of 2001 and are likely to add more strain to already tense race relations in the country.
The Dallas protest was one of several nationwide over the deaths of Alton Sterling in Louisiana and Philando Castile in Minnesota that prompted Mr Obama to make an emotional appeal for urgent police reform.
Thousands marched in Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, Saint Paul, Washington and other cities late Thursday, with more than 1,000 protesters gathering in New York’s Times Square.
President Barack Obama called the Dallas sniper-style ambush a “vicious, calculated and despicable attack on law enforcement,” and pledged that those responsible would be held accountable.
Dallas police chief David Brown said, “Dallas officers are hurting. We are heart-broken. There are no words to describe the atrocity that occurred in our city. This must stop – this divisiveness between our police and our citizens. ”
Mr Obama also made it clear that violence against police had “no possible justification.”
Speaking from Warsaw, where he is attending the Nato summit, the president said, “There is no contradiction between us supporting law enforcement ... and also saying that there are problems across our criminal justice system, there are biases – some conscious and unconscious – that have to be rooted out. So when people say ‘Black Lives Matter,’ that doesn’t mean blue lives don’t matter – it just means all lives matter.”
* Associated Press
