The gunman who killed five police officers in a sniper ambush in Dallas last week was plotting larger attacks, the city’s police chief David Brown has said.
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Brown, a strong advocate for community-based policing, attributed the city’s radical reduction in crime over the last decade to his department’s efforts to reduce the use of force and to hire officers familiar with Dallas neighborhoods.
“We’re convinced that this suspect had other plans”, Police Chief David Brown told CNN, adding that the recent deaths of African-Americans at the hands of police in Minnesota and Louisiana led the Texas shooter to “fast track” his plans.
Officials said Johnson had embraced militant black nationalism and expressed anger over shootings by police as well as a desire to “kill white people, especially white officers”.
He said he approved the plan to detonate a bomb with “about of pound” of C-4 explosives after two hours of fruitless talks with the suspect, who sang, laughed and taunted with police negotiators. “And 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”. The police said they searched a headquarters parking garage for a “suspicious person” but no suspect was found. “I didn’t see it coming”, the tearful dad said.
Military service changed the Dallas gunman from an extrovert into a hermit, his parents said in an excerpt of an interview published Monday.
Investigators said Johnson kept a journal of combat tactics and had a personal weapons arsenal at home, which included bomb-making materials, ammunition and rifles.
In September 2010 Brown moved to fire and criminally charge three officers after two were caught on video beating up a man and the third was accused of trying to cover up the incident, The Dallas Morning News reported. He served in the Army Reserve for six years starting in 2009 and did one tour in Afghanistan from November 2013 to July 2014, the military said.
“This wasn’t an ethical dilemma for me”, Brown said.
“So we can not let the actions of a few define all of us”, Obama said from Warsaw, Poland, where he attended a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation summit.
President Barack Obama urged Americans on Saturday not to view the United States as being riven into opposing groups, seeking to soothe raw emotions after a former USA soldier killed five policemen in Dallas and high-profile police shootings of two black men in Minnesota and Louisiana.
Police have been tight-lipped about exactly what they’re investigating and what they’ve uncovered so far.
Shetamia Taylor, who was shot while shielding her son, said police surrounded her and saved her life by creating a human wall of bodies to block the bullets.
“They said the police weren’t mean and they were very understanding of the situation”.
“Will be great to get you back in the academy”, Everman said, according to a comment thread saved by the AP before Johnson’s Facebook profile was taken down.
Emergency-room caregivers are used to dealing with trauma, but the situation rocked some “to their core that I thought were unshakable”, said Dr. Alex Eastman. Craig says two of the men were released and two were jailed on unrelated warrants.
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Video from Dallas showed protesters marching along a downtown street about half a mile from City Hall when shots erupted and the crowd scattered, seeking cover. In Tennessee a man started shooting at random on passing cars and the police on the highway.
