Micah Xavier Johnson, a 25-year-old Army veteran who reportedly said he was “upset about Black Lives Matter” and “recent police shootings” has been identified as the person responsible for shooting 11 cops, killing five, in Dallas.
According to Police Chief David Brown, five police officers were killed and seven were wounded. Two civilians were also wounded in the shootings. Micah Johnson was killed after a police robot detonated a bomb near him following a standoff that lasted several hours.
“The suspect said he was upset with white people and wanted to kill white people, especially white officers,” said Chief Brown.
Despite the reports last night of there being multiple suspects, the police now say that it’s ‘unclear’ if there were any other gunman. Police initially said two snipers positioned themselves in triangulated locations to fire on officers from elevated positions.
via Heavy:
After the shootings in downtown Dallas, the gunman, identified as Micah Xavier Johnson, 25, holed himself up inside El Centro College in the downtown area of the city, Dallas Police Chief David Brown said at a press conference.
He told police he was “not affiliated with any groups,” and he said he “did this alone,” the chief said.
Sources told the Los Angeles Times that Johnson has no ties to terror groups and no known criminal history. He has lived in the Dallas area and has family members living in Mesquite, Texas, east of Dallas, the newspaper reports, citing federal law enforcement sources.
A black SUV was found at the scene registered to Delphene Johnson, who is Micah Johnson’s mother, according to Facebook posts and public records, NBC Dallas-Fort Worth reports. Live helicopter video from the news station showed police at her home in Mesquite.
Johnson served in the U.S. Army Reserve, investigators said. Details about his service were not immediately available.
Johnson told police negotiators the “end is coming” and said he wanted to “kill more” officers, according to Brown.
Police said after several hours of negotiating, with intermittent exchanges of gunfire, the suspect was killed by a bomb-wielding robot.
“We tried to negotiate for several hours, negotiations broke down, we had an exchange of gunfire with the suspect,” Brown said. “We saw no other option but to use our bomb-robot and place a device on its extension for it to detonate where the suspect was. Other options would have exposed our officers to grave danger. The suspect is dead a result of detonating the bomb.”
The suspect did not shoot himself, despite reports, Brown said.
“He wanted to kill officers, and he expressed killing white people, he expressed killing white officers,” Brown said. “He expressed anger for Black Lives Matter. None of that makes sense, none of that is a legitimate reason to do harm to anyone, so the rest of it would just be speculating on what his motivations were. We just know what he said to our negotiators.”
While he was barricaded in the hotel, the suspect told police there were bombs planted “all over” downtown Dallas, the city’s police chief said at a press conference.
Police have not said if any bombs or suspicious items have been found.
“He said we will eventually find the IEDs,” Brown said.
Help us, Lord.
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