Micah Xavier Johnson, identified as a gunman in the deadly attack on police officers in Dallas last night, was an enlisted soldier who served a tour of duty in Afghanistan.
The U.S. army on Friday confirmed Johnson’s military service, a day after five Dallas police officers were shot dead and five officers and two civilians were wounded in an attack that comes during a week of violence involving police and black men.
Dallas police killed Johnson, 25, with a robot-delivered bomb after hours of overnight negotiations in a parking garage had failed.
Johnson served in the army reserve from March 2009 to April 2015. He was a private first class with a specialty in carpentry and masonry. His Afghanistan deployment spanned from November 2013 to July 2014.
During lengthy negotiations with police Thursday, the gunman said “the end is coming,” according to Dallas police Chief David Brown.
“The suspect said he was upset about Black Lives Matter,” said Brown. “He said he was upset about the recent police shootings. The suspect said he was upset at white people. The suspect stated that he wanted to kill white people, especially white officers.”
Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings, right, and Dallas Police Chief David Brown answer questions from the media Friday. (David Woo/The Dallas Morning News via AP)
The man also told negotiators that he had acted alone in the shooting and was unaffiliated with any group, Brown said, but it remains unclear whether that was the case.
Brown said other suspects were in custody, but would not discuss those detentions. Brown added that police still didn’t know if investigators had accounted for all participants in the attack, which began after 9 p.m. and dispersed a peaceful protest over two high-profile shootings earlier this week in two other states that involved police shootings of black men.
About a half-dozen police vehicles were parked Friday outside the two-story brick home in Mesquite, Texas, thought to be that of Johnson.
An unverified Facebook page belonging to a Micah Johnson that has since been taken down shows a profile picture of a young black man wearing a dashiki, with a raised fist.
Another picture shows the same man posing with Richard (Professor Griff) Griffin, the former member of Public Enemy who made anti-Semitic comments in 1989.