“The military was not what Micah thought it would be”, she said.
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Although police believe Johnson acted alone, “we still have not ruled out whether or not others were complicit”, Brown said.
Johnson had served with the U.S. Army Reserve from 2009 to 2015 and served for a time in Afghanistan.
But he was clearly disappointed when he came home, and he began studying black history, James Johnson said.
Speaking to CNN Sunday morning, the chief said officers could not see Johnson, who was “secreted behind a brick corner”.
Public safety entered a new tactical era last week, as the Dallas police department deployed a “bomb robot” and killed Micah Xavier Johnson, the suspected shooter of 12 law-enforcement officers, five of whom died. Brown did not provide more details, including the locations of the negotiations that came before the bomb.
Brown also revealed in the CNN interview that Johnson wrote the letters “RB” in his own blood when engaged in a standoff with police, a mysterious clue that remains under investigation, the Dallas police chief said. “I’m here today as a testament to God’s grace and sweet tender mercies”, he said. “And I’ll do it again if presented with the same circumstances”.
The gunman in the deadly attack on Dallas police had plans for a larger assault and possessed enough explosive material to inflict far greater harm, the city’s police chief and top elected official said.
Brown said police will be reviewing more than 170 hours of video from police body cameras relating to Thursday’s shootings as well as surveillance videos from surrounding businesses.
“Bravery is not a strong enough word to describe what they did that day”, Brown said of officers’ response to Thursday’s events. He visited and liked several websites dedicated to Black Lives Matter and the New Black Panthers, along with the Nation of Islam and the Black Riders Liberation Party, two groups the Southern Poverty Law Center considers hate groups.
He also added: “It has to stop”. Those were the latest in a series of high-profile killings of black men by police in various U.S. cities that have triggered protests.
Still, many people who become radicalized do so without direct ties to any groups.
“No problems have yet materialized, thank heavens”, Waveland Police Chief David Allen said in an email Sunday night to The Associated Press.
“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”.
Federal agents are trying to trace the origin of the weapons used by Johnson, including a semi-automatic rifle.
About 30 agents are also involved in identifying bullet casings, said William Temple, the Dallas agent in charge for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Ryan Lenz, online editor and senior writer at the SPLC, told The Associated Press that the number of black separatist groups almost doubled in 2015, mirroring a similar increase among white hate groups that has come against the backdrop of police killings that make frequent headlines.
“I’ve been black a long time”, Brown told reporters Monday. “He wanted to protect his country”. It was unclear whether Johnson ever received counseling. The shootings happened a few blocks from Dealey Plaza, the landmark made famous by President John F. Kennedy’s assassination.
The attack began Thursday evening during protests over the police killings of Philando Castile, who was fatally shot near St. Paul, Minnesota, and Alton Sterling, who was shot in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, after being pinned to the pavement by two white officers.
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.
Seeing multiple people carrying rifles led police initially to believe they were under attack by multiple shooters. Two officers from El Centro were injured.
“This is the best department in the country, and I’m proud to be associated with the men and women of the Dallas Police Department”, he said. Portraits of the officers were propped up in front of the speaker’s platform.
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The mayor and the chief had rushed to Parkland Memorial Hospital to be with the families of fallen officers even as a standoff with the gunman continued downtown. His wife, Cecilia Abbott, will take his place.
