“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”. Detectives are analyzing the information in the journal. When news of violence in downtown Dallas broke Thursday night, he told the paper, he sent a text to his son asking whether everything was OK. President Barack Obama, who called the attack “vicious, calculated, and despicable”, will travel to Dallas early next week, cutting short his trip to Europe to attend the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation summit, the White House announced.
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“He was upset about the recent police shootings” and “wanted to kill white people, especially white officers”, he told police as they were trying to get him to surrender, according to Dallas Police Chief David Brown.
“That includes protesters. It includes family members who have grave concerns about police conduct and they’ve said that this is unacceptable”, Obama added.
Investigators have concluded that Johnson, armed with a rifle, was the lone gunman, and did not have links to any worldwide militant group.
Johnson, a private first class, was deployed to Afghanistan from November 2013 to July 2014, according to his service record.
We are updating this story throughout the day. He did say that this assault was a vicious calculated attack on long enforcement.
The threat comes two days after five officers were shot and killed by a sniper during a peaceful protest of police involved shootings of black men.
The news from police came as police pieced together the background on the suspect, 25-year-old Micah Xavier Johnson, in the ambush-style shooting Thursday night.
Gov. Greg Abbott ordered Texas flags to be flown at half-staff statewide during the same time period to honor the victims. “No other officers were killed and this suspect went down”.
In addition to the five slain officers, seven officers and two civilians were wounded. He said the event was peaceful.
“We left that rally in a non-violent fashion; the rally was non violent”, Hood says.
The department says on Twitter that it searched the garage with officers and dogs to ensure a report of a suspicious person was thoroughly investigated. “All I know is that this must stop, this divisiveness between our police and our citizens”.
“He is the officer in charge, and I think he made the right call”, Rawlings said. “We had this one madman and he took it to an extreme”. “I have thousands of people”.
It’s on all of us to stand up, to speak out about disparities in our criminal justice system – just as it’s on all of us to stand up for the police who protect us in our communities every day.
“Our hearts are broken”, the statement said. “Anything we can do to help you'”. Attorney General Loretta Lynch appealed for calm, asking the public not to let the recent racially charged shootings “precipitate a new normal” marked by violence.
Already, the tragedy in Dallas has inflamed tensions over police violence, further politicizing the ongoing debate over how to reform law enforcement and relations with minority communities.
In Dallas, Rawlings said the shooting “came from one building at different levels from this suspect”.
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Shooters, some in elevated positions, used rifles to fire at the officers in what appeared to be a coordinated attack, Brown said.
