The sniper who killed five police officers in Dallas planned larger attacks, probably on law enforcement, the city’s police chief said Sunday as he provided new details about how the suspect taunted authorities for two hours during negotiations.
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Amid the protests against police brutality spreading across the country, Dallas is still haunted by the death of five officers at the hands of a lone gunman.
President Barack Obama and other political leaders are expected to be in Dallas on Tuesday for a memorial service in honor of the shooting victims, but the Dallas Police Department will not take the lead on security.
“He just basically lied to us; playing games, laughing at us, singing, asking how many did he get and that he wanted to kill some more and that there were bombs there”, Brown said, explaining that negotiations had broken down.
According to Dallas Police Chief David Brown, the plans of the Dallas sniper who murdered police in a Thursday night ambush reveal he was only just getting started.
Johnson, who served in the Army Reserve for six years starting and did one tour in Afghanistan, insisted on speaking with a black negotiator and wrote in blood on the wall of a parking garage where police cornered and later killed him, Brown said. Previously, seven were reported, but Brown increased the total to account for two officers from El Centro College.
Evidence markers and Federal Bureau of Investigation agents litter the streets, and the Dallas police chief says there is still a lot that needs to be done.
“They took an inner city kid like me with flaws and made me their police chief”, he said.
The 25-year-old gunman had amassed a personal arsenal at his home, including bomb-making materials, rifles, ammunition and a journal of combat tactics, authorities said Friday.
He was killed by police after a standoff using a bomb delivered by a robot.
He also wounded at least nine other officers and two civilians before he was killed.
Brown said Johnson suffered from delusions based on ramblings in a journal that are hard to decipher. “This wasn’t some novice”, Mr Brown said.
“I would use any tool necessary to save our officer’s lives”.
“We don’t know the scope of his plans yet”, Brown said.
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The deaths in Baton Rouge and St. Paul were the latest in a series of high-profile and controversial killings of black men by police in cities including New York, Ferguson, Missouri, Chicago and Baltimore. I have been the first to say, we need to separate employment with those types of cops – 1% or 2%.
