07-10-2016, 05:11 PM
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dallas shooter had plans for wider attack police say
Dallas shooter had plans for wider attack, police say - The Globe and Mail
Quote:
The gunman who fatally shot five police officers in Dallas was believed to be planning larger attacks, the city?s police chief said Sunday as he provided new details of how the gunman had scrawled letters in his own blood on a wall before he was killed by a bomb-equipped robot and how he had been singing, laughing and taunting officers during negotiations with them.
David O. Brown, the police chief, said that evidence showed that Micah Johnson, 25, an African-American Army Reserve veteran, had been practicing detonations and that the explosive material had the potential ?to have devastating effects throughout our city and our North Texas area.?
Attack on police in Dallas: The latest and what we know so far
?We?re convinced this suspect had other plans and thought that what he was doing was righteous,? Brown said during an interview on CNN?s ?State of the Union? Sunday. The chief said he believed Johnson?s intent was to ?make us pay for what he sees as law enforcement?s efforts to punish people of color,? including the fatal police shootings of African-Americans in Louisiana and Minnesota that occurred in the days before the ambush. Brown said Johnson ?was intent on hurting more of us.?
Brown gave new details of the two hours of negotiations that the police conducted with the suspect, saying Johnson had demanded to speak to a black negotiator, had sung and laughed, and had asked how many officers he had killed. Johnson also wrote the letters ?R.B.? in blood on the walls of the parking garage where he had hidden, Brown said, an indication that he may have been wounded. It was not clear what those letters referred to, the chief said.
Brown said Johnson ?obviously had some delusion.? He described the gunman as doing ?quite a bit of rambling at the scene.?
Brown said the police were examining Johnson?s laptop and cellphone and had not completely ruled out the possibility that others were involved.
Officials in recent days have revealed that Johnson, who served in the Army Reserve from 2009 to 2015, had bomb-making materials, ballistic vests, rifles, ammunition and a journal of combat tactics in his home. His journal described a methodical attack in which a gunman can keep moving to confuse the enemy.
The chief and Mayor Mike Rawlings of Dallas robustly defended the police department?s use of the robot bomb that killed Johnson. Critics have raised questions about the episode, which may have been the first time a local law enforcement agency in the United States had used such a device to kill a suspect.
Brown said that the suspect had hidden in a corner in the garage and that deploying a sniper would have exposed the police to ?great danger.?
?We believe that we saved lives by making this decision,? he said.
Rawlings said Sunday during an interview on ?Face the Nation? that he supported the department?s use of the bomb, and that the authorities had decided to use it only after negotiators had been unable to persuade Johnson to surrender.
?It was a difficult decision because the safety of our police officers were in our mind,? he said. ?The chief had two options, and he went with this one. I supported him completely because it was the safest way to approach it, and we talked to this man a long time and he threatened to blow up our police officers. We went to his home, we saw that there was bombmaking equipment later, so it was very important that we realize that he may not be bluffing.?
The two officials spoke as the nation mourned a week of bloodshed that started with fatal police shootings of African-Americans in Louisiana and Minnesota, followed by the Dallas ambush during a protest march.
In downtown Dallas Sunday morning, the police continued to block access to more than 20 square blocks as investigators entered the third day of their inquiry. Flags flew at half-staff throughout the city after the buildings that dot its skyline had again been lit in blue overnight.
The Dallas Morning News published a front-page editorial urging the city to emerge as an example of how to bring the nation together.
?Today our country seems capable of pulling apart in ways that have not seemed possible in many decades,? the editorial said. ?Dallas, again, has been bathed in blood and grief. How we respond will help show a path forward to a divided, reeling nation.?
Brown called for Americans to support police officers, but acknowledged: ?We?re not perfect. There?s cops that don?t need to be cops.?
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Topics
Micah Johnson
Dallas, Texas
Army Reserve
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