Officials Say Dallas Sniper, a Former US Army Soldier, Acted Alone

Micah X. Johnson was a 'demented individual,' said President Obama.

by

Nika Knight, staff writer

Officials have confirmed that Micah X. Johnson is the identity of the suspect killed after anambush on Dallas police on Friday that wounded seven people and killed five police officers.

On Friday, local officials said the police had taken four suspects into custody. They are now confirming that Johnson is the sole suspect and that he acted alone.

Johnson was a former member of the U.S. Army Reserve who served in Afghanistan, Reuters reports, and experts believe his military training played a role in the shooting:

The gunman in downtown Dallas, wearing light tan pants and a dark tan jacket, crouches behind a trash can next to the pillar of an office building.

He stalks his target, who stands behind a pillar just a few feet away, then charges with a rifle. The assailant bobs and weaves - while firing - then circles the pillar and squeezes off rounds into the back of a collapsing body in a dark, short-sleeved uniform.

The scene unfolds in a widely circulated video that appears to have captured one killing in Thursday's ambush of Dallas police that left five officers dead, and seven other officers and two civilians wounded. The shooter's maneuvers make clear that the gunman had extensive tactical training, military experts who reviewed the video told Reuters. The authenticity of the video could not be independently confirmed.

"He is using his rifle in the way that we are trained," Michael Waltz, a former U.S. Army Special Forces officer and White House aide who served in Afghanistan, told Reuters. "He runs directly into fire with the police officer and then flanks him."

"Other indications of training, Waltz said, are the way the shooter raises and lowers the rifle to his shoulder, and appears to squeeze off two rounds at a time," the newswire service reports.

Late Friday, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings commented, "This was a mobile shooter that had written manifestoes on how to shoot and move, shoot and move. And he did that. He did his damage, but we did damage to him as well."

Police controversially killed Johnson with a robot armed with a bomb while negotiating with him early Friday morning, as Common Dreams reported.

The Washington Post reports that President Barack Obama on Saturday connected "the shooting in Dallas to some of the mass shootings that have claimed dozens of lives since last year, invoking the rampages at a historic black church in Charleston, S.C.; a gay club in Orlando; and an office party in San Bernardino, Calif."

"The demented individual who carried out those attacks in Dallas, he's no more representative of African Americans than the shooter in Charleston was representative of white Americans, or the shooter in Orlando, or San Bernardino, were representative of Muslim Americans," Obama said. "They don't speak for us. That's not who we are."

Dallas Police Chief David Brown has said that before he was killed, Johnson said he was "upset about Black Lives Matter...upset about the recent police shootings...upset at white people," as Common Dreams reported.

Black Lives Matter organizers and participants have condemned the killings, and on Saturday continued to protest the fatal shootings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile at the hands of the police earlier this week.

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