Dallas shooter identified as Micah Johnson/FACEBOOK
DALLAS, United States, Jul 8 — The man suspected of opening fire on police officers in Dallas, killing five and wounding seven others, has been identified as 25-year-old Texas resident Micah Johnson, US media reported Friday.
Johnson lived in the Dallas suburb of Mesquite, CBS News and NBC News reported. He was killed in a tense showdown with police after the shootings, which also left two civilians wounded.
The suspect believed to have ambushed Dallas officers during a protest against US police brutality told negotiators he wanted to kill white cops, the city’s police chief said Friday.
Two civilians were also shot and wounded in the chaotic fray late Thursday in the sprawling Texas city, one of many cities across the United States where protests had erupted over the fatal police shootings of two black men earlier this week.
President Barack Obama called the Dallas sniper-style ambush a “vicious, calculated and despicable attack on law enforcement” and pledged that those responsible would be held accountable.
The shootings sparked chaotic scenes of people running for their lives during a march by several hundred demonstrators in the city of roughly 1.2 million people.
One witness at the rally spoke of “complete pandemonium,” in an area close to the site where President John F Kennedy was killed in 1963.
The primary suspect was killed in a tense showdown with police in a parking garage, authorities confirmed.
An unspecified number of suspects in custody, including one black woman, were “not being real cooperative,” Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings said. Earlier, officials said three people had been detained.
– ‘He wanted to kill white people’ –
It was the single biggest loss of life for law enforcement in America since the September 11, 2001 attacks, and appeared likely to further strain already tense race relations in the country.
“Dallas officers are hurting. We are heartbroken. There are no words to describe the atrocity that occurred to our city,” city police chief David Brown told reporters.
“This must stop — this divisiveness between our police and our citizens.”
Rawlings and Brown explained that police used an explosive device sent in by robot during the standoff with the suspect, who he only described as “male.”
The suspect was killed in the explosion, Brown said, but before that, he revealed some of his possible motive to negotiators.
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