The shootings just a few blocks from where President John F. Kennedy was slain in 1963 marked the deadliest day for US law enforcement since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Advertisement
Brown believes that the police-involved shooting deaths of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, La., and Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, Minn., may have led Johnson “to fast-track his plans”, and unleash terror on what had been a peaceful Black Lives Matter protest in Dallas.
The Dallas police chief also said that the Arlington Police Department had offered to work with the Secret Service to provide security during President Barack Obama’s visit to the city later in the week, probably on Thursday.
On Thursday night, snipers hiding in a multi-story garage opened fire on police officers during a mass protest in downtown Dallas against recent killings of African-Americans by police officers. They’re also reviewing more than 300 statements and are hoping to talk to more officers who were at the scene but haven’t yet been interviewed.
Dallas police SWAT team members stay in a holding position in front of the Dallas Police Department headquarters which was locked down after an anonymous threat was reported in Dallas, Texas, U.S. July 9, 2016. “Serve your communities”, Chief Brown said during a Monday news conference.
In an unprecedented move, officers used a remote-controlled bomb robot with an explosive device attached to kill the suspect after hours of negotiations broke down.
He knew the route of the Dallas march, and his military training apparently benefited him during the shooting, as he effectively triangulated police and started taking them out with his high caliber rifle, Brown said. Brown said he plans on releasing some of the conversation that took place during negotiations as soon as it is transcribed. “I’d do it again to save our officers lives”.
A search of Johnson’s Dallas-area home turned up bomb-making materials and a journal on military tactics. Investigators are trying to decipher the writing by looking through evidence from Johnson’s suburban Dallas home.
He said Johnson had scrawled the letters “RB” in his own blood on a wall before dying.
“It was a hard decision because the safety of our police officers were in our mind, we had just lost so many”, Rawlings said speaking on CBS’s “Face the Nation” Sunday.
Advertisement
Brown said he stood by his decision but understood why questions have been raised about the use of deadly force against the gunman, rather than opting for a non-lethal method to disable him.
