DALLAS
— A military veteran who said his goal was to kill white police
officers opened fire Thursday night in downtown Dallas, leaving five
officers dead and seven wounded before the police killed him with a
remote-controlled explosive delivered by a robot, officials said.
During
a standoff that lasted for hours after the attack, the sniper claimed —
apparently falsely — to have planted explosives in the area, and told
police negotiators that “he was upset about Black Lives Matter,” the
Dallas police chief, David O. Brown, said on Friday.
“He
said he was upset about the recent police shootings,” Chief Brown said.
“The suspect said he was upset at white people. The suspect stated he
wanted to kill white people, especially white officers.”
The
officers who were shot were patrolling a peaceful demonstration by
thousands of people protesting the fatal shootings earlier in the week
of black men by police officers in Minnesota and Louisiana.
The gunfire, starting just before 9 p.m., sent terrified marchers,
including families with children, running for cover, while police
officers ran the other way, guns drawn and toward the shooting, and
returned fire. Two civilians were wounded by gunfire.
The
police arrested three people, but there was some uncertainty about the
number of gunmen. At first, officials said that multiple snipers had
carried out a coordinated ambush of the officers — some of whom were
shot in the back, the chief said — but later, a senior law enforcement
official said it appeared that the suspect killed by the police,
identified as Micah Johnson, 25, was the sole gunman.
Mr.
Brown declined to identify the people who were arrested, or to say if
there might have been others involved, either as snipers or in other
roles.
The gunman claimed he acted alone, he said, but “we’re not
satisfied that we’ve exhausted every lead.”
Mr.
Johnson, an Army Reserve veteran who served in Afghanistan and lived in
the Dallas area, apparently had no criminal record in Texas.
Investigators have not turned up any evidence that Mr. Johnson, who was
black, had ties to the Black Lives Matter movement or to other political
groups.
The
sequence of events this week tore at a nation already deeply divided
over questions of policing and race, pivoting from anger and despair
over shootings of black men by the police to officers being targeted in
apparent retaliation.
It dealt a blow both to law enforcement and to
peaceful critics of the police, who have fended off claims that the
outcry over police shootings foments violence and puts officers’ lives
in danger.
“All I know is that this must stop, this divisiveness between our police and our citizens,” Chief Brown said.