“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”.
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The family says Micah Johnson never showed signs of hatred for certain groups of people, but that he hated “injustice”.
Brent Thompson was a 43-year-old officer with the Dallas Area Rapid Transit authority.
Thompson had recently married another transit officer and had six grown children from a previous marriage.
Brown spoke to CNN to discuss the failed negotiations with Johnson, the suspect’s death and the ongoing investigation.
Separately in St. Paul, authorities were dealing with the aftermath of the late Saturday unrest, where 102 people were arrested when protesters blocked a freeway and attacked police with rocks, bottles, fireworks and a Molotov cocktail.
No uniformed police officers are apparent at the protest. 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 Detroit News reports (http://detne.ws/29xvuqS ) that one of the men is accused of urging people to kill white officers.
Around the country, people have showed up at local departments with flowers, sent social media messages or called to say thanks.
Dallas Police Chief David Brown said Johnson had a larger assault planned and possessed enough explosives to cause a lot more harm.
During the attack, Johnson shot 12 officers and two civilians, killing five of the officers.
The Dallas gunman was plotting a major bomb attack, authorities said, urging calm as hundreds of people were arrested in weekend protests in USA cities over police violence against African-Americans.
At the Cathedral Shrine of the Virgin of Guadalupe in downtown Dallas, Roman Catholic parishioners gathered on Sunday for their weekly service and to remember the fallen officers.
“Nobody wanted to be the first but, yeah, there is no question that it proved effective and the door is now open”, said Sid Heal, president of the California Association of Tactical Officers and a retired Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department commander.
The fact that Johnson had material for explosives and talked of using homemade bombs during a standoff with police before he was killed indicated he could have inflicted more damage with more time, Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said.
“At the scene where he was killed, he wrote some lettering in blood on the walls, which leads us to believe he was wounded on the way up the stairwell, on the second floor of the El Centro building and where we detonated the device to end the standoff there was more lettering written in his own blood”, he said. The chief says he also wrote in blood on the wall of a parking garage where police cornered and later killed him.
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The shootings just a few blocks from where President John F. Kennedy was slain in 1963 marked the deadliest day for USA law enforcement since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Five officers were fatally shot just a few blocks from where President John F. Kennedy was slain in 1963.
