Dallas Police ID Shooter Killed by Robot Bomb (Photo)

“The suspect said he was upset about Black Lives Matter. He said he was upset about recent police shootings,” police chief says

dallas sniper
Getty Images

Texas law enforcement officials have identified the slain suspect in the Dallas attack on police as 25-year-old Micah Xavier Johnson of Mesquite, Texas. CNN has reported that he is a former U.S. Army Reservist. Johnson was killed by a bomb robot after he refused to surrender, according to police.

Robotics expert Peter W. Singer of the New America Foundation said Dallas police appear to be the first law enforcement agency to use a robot to kill a suspect, according to the Associated Press. Earlier Friday, Dallas mayor Mike Rawlings and police chief David Brown held a joint news conference and said that the shooter, who now appears to be Johnson, wanted to kill white people.

“The suspect said he was upset about Black lives Matter. He said he was upset about recent police shootings. The suspect was upset at white people. The suspect stated he wanted to kill white people,” Brown said. “Especially white officers.”

The New York Post and various other publications have published a photo of the killer, reportedly from Johnson’s Facebook page. The Post says Johnson doesn’t have a known criminal history or affiliation to terror groups.

Johnson allegedly shot 12 police officers and two civilians during a rally Thursday night to protest police shootings, killing five of them. Brown said the suspect, presumed to be Johnson, was cornered, and gun fire was exchanged after negotiations fell apart, so the bomb robot was brought in.

“The suspect stated that we will eventually find the IEDs. The suspect stated he was not affiliated with any groups,” Brown said. “He stated that he did this alone.”

According to the AP, Singer said in an e-mail on Friday that a U.S. soldier told him in 2009 that troops in Iraq sometimes used MARCbot surveillance robots to kill insurgents. It has now come to America.

“We saw no other option but to use our bomb robot … for it to detonate where the suspect was. Other options would have exposed our officers to grave dangers,” Brown said.

“The suspect is deceased as a result of detonating the bomb. The reporting that the suspect killed himself is not accurate.”