Dallas Police Shooter Micah Xavier Johnson "Upset with White People & Wanted to Kill White People”

An Army veteran “upset about Black Lives Matter” and “recent police shootings” who opened fire Thursday night in Dallas in an attack on police officers has been identified as Micah Xavier Johnson, the Los Angeles Times and CBS News report.

Five police officers were killed and seven were wounded, officials said. Two civilians were also wounded in the shootings. Johnson, 25, was killed when a police robot detonated a bomb near him following a standoff that lasted several hours, Police Chief David Brown said Friday at a press conference.

“The suspect said he was upset with white people and wanted to kill white people, especially white officers,” Brown said.

#Dallas Chief: Suspect said he was "upset at white people, wanted to kill white people, especially white officers."https://t.co/ygYQAJlFfL

— CBS This Morning (@CBSThisMorning) July 8, 2016

It is not clear if there were any other gunmen, or whether other people taken into custody by police were involved in the shooting. Police initially said two snipers positioned themselves in triangulated locations to fire on officers from elevated positions.

The gunfire began just before 9 p.m. while a peaceful rally was held by Black Lives Matter in response to recent controversial police killings of black men in Louisiana and Minnesota.

The gunman was then cornered in El Centro College in downtown Dallas.

Little is known about the gunman so far, and this post will be updated as more information is released. Here’s what we know so far about the suspected shooter and the tragic incident:

1. The Former Soldier Told Police He Was Not Affiliated With Any Groups & He ‘Did This Alone’

After the shootings in downtown Dallas, the gunman, identified as Micah Xavier Johnson, 25, holed himself up inside the El Centro College building in the downtown area of the city, Dallas Police Chief David Brown said at a press conference.

He told police he was “not affiliated with any groups,” and he said he “did this alone,” the chief said.

Sources told the Los Angeles Times that Johnson has no ties to terror groups and no known criminal history. He has lived in the Dallas area and has family members living in Mesquite, Texas, east of Dallas, the newspaper reports, citing federal law enforcement sources.

A black SUV was found at the scene registered to Delphene Johnson, who is Micah Johnson’s mother according to Facebook posts and public records, NBC Dallas-Fort Worth reports. Live helicopter video from the news station showed police at her home in Mesquite.

Johnson served in the U.S. Army Reserve, investigators said.

Johnson told police negotiators the “end is coming” and said he wanted to “kill more” officers, according to Brown.

Police said after several hours of negotiating and shooting at the officers, the suspect was killed by a bomb-wielding robot.

“We tried to negotiate for several hours, negotiations broke down, we had an exchange of gunfire with the suspect,” Brown said. “We saw no other option but to use our bomb-robot and place a device on its extension for it to detonate where the suspect was. Other options would have exposed our officers to grave danger. The suspect is dead a result of detonating the bomb.”

The suspect did not shoot himself, despite reports, Brown said.

“He wanted to kill officers, and he expressed killing white people, he expressed killing white officers,” Brown said. “He expressed anger for Black Lives Matter. None of that makes sense, none of that is a legitimate reason to do harm to anyone, so the rest of it would just be speculating on what his motivations were. We just know what he said to our negotiators.”

While he was barricaded in the hotel, the suspect told police there were bombs planted “all over” downtown Dallas, the city’s police chief said at a press conference.

Police have not said if any bombs or suspicious items have been found.

“He said we will eventually find the IEDs,” Police Chief David Brown said at a press conference.

The shooting came a year and a month after a man angry at police opened fire on the Dallas Police headquarters. He fired several shots at the building, but no one was injured. The man,James Boulware, was driving an armored van and was later chased down by police. He was killed during a standoff.

Boulware also claimed he had planted bombs in downtown Dallas.

2. His Facebook Page Includes a ‘Black Power’ Poster

Micah Johnson’s Facebook page provides few details about his life. In May, he posted a “Black Power” poster, one of the few images on his page:

Read the rest at heavy.com