Chief David Brown told media that he took the responsibility for approving the plan, referring to the strategy of deploying a bomb-equipped robot into a room where the gunman was holed up.
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The concern Brown is facing, even days after Johnson’s assault ended with the killer being blown up by a police robot, is mirrored by other officers and other police departments around the country. WFAA’s report said the shooter knew police would be out in full-force at protests in Dallas.
When asked about additional suspects, Brown said he is still not convinced that Johnson was working along.
It is believed to have been the first time that U.S. police have killed a suspect in this manner.
“We had negotiated with him for about two hours, and he just basically lied to us – playing games, laughing at us, singing, asking how many [officers] did he get and that he wanted to kill some more and that there were bombs there”, Brown said, “So there was no progress on the negotiation”.
The slain officers included four from the Dallas Police Department and one from the Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART).
Speaking at a news conference on Monday, Brown said that Micah Johnson, the 25-year-old suspect, had “already killed us in a grave way, and officers were in surgery that didn’t make it”.
Patrick Zamarripa is pictured in this undated family handout photo.
Brown said Dallas police acted courageously during the Thursday shooting, which also wounded seven people.
Officers swarmed the department’s headquarters, searching for a reported suspicious person in a garage next to the building, before finally issuing an all-clear.
The chief defended the decision to kill Johnson with a bomb delivered by remote-controlled robot, saying negotiations went nowhere and that officers could not approach him without putting themselves in danger.
During an interview with Jones, Johnson’s parents said they didn’t see the signs of a pending attack.
Protesters blocked a motorway in the city and attacked police with rocks, bottles, fireworks, Molotov cocktails and metal bars.
Police said the Dallas ambush shooter had taunted police negotiators and scrawled on a wall in his own blood before he was ultimately killed in the standoff. Two civilians were also hurt, the Dallas mayor’s office said. He received instruction at the Academy of Combative Warrior Arts in the Dallas suburb of Richardson about two years ago, said the school’s founder and chief instructor, Justin J. Everman.
The chief and the county’s most senior elected official also said Sunday that Micah Johnson had larger attack plans and possessed enough explosive material to inflict far greater harm.
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In all, 12 officers were shot, five fatally, just a few blocks from where President John F Kennedy was assassinated in 1963.
