The Crime of Opportunity

 

One of the top elected official in Dallas says it appears Thursday's attack on a protest march was a "crime of opportunity."

Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins says authorities believe the gunman, Micah Johnson, had been practicing and training for a long time, learned of the protest and knew there would be a lot of police to protect protesters.

Jenkins says Johnson had material for explosives in his home and talked of using IEDs during the police standoff. He says that indicates he could have done more damage with more time, but used the protest in Dallas to strike in a more limited, albeit deadly, fashion.

Authorities say Johnson, who was black, fatally shot five police officers who were protecting demonstrators protesting the police killings of two black men in Louisiana and Minnesota last week. He was later killed by police.

A culturally diverse group of demonstrators formed a circle in front of a suburban Minnesota city hall Sunday to protest the shooting death of a black driver by a police officer.

A number of protesters spoke to the crowd of approximately 200 outside St. Anthony City Hall outside St. Paul. St. Anthony is near Falcon Heights, where police fatally shot a black driver, Philando Castile, on Wednesday.

Alice Chavez gave an impassioned speech describing how her son was shot and killed by a police officer in his home several years ago.

Barricades were placed at either end of the block in front of city hall to allow the protest to proceed. Nearby streets were clogged with cars.

The rally was peaceful with children playing with each other just beyond the circle of demonstrators.

Four Dallas County government buildings closed to the public since the killings of five police officers will reopen this week.

Officials say the George L. Allen Sr. Civil Courts Building, the Old Red Museum, the Dallas County Administration Building and the Dallas County Records Building will be open regular hours Monday.

Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins announced the openings Sunday. It came as some downtown Dallas streets remained closed to vehicle traffic following Thursday's attacks.

A lone sniper was blamed for killing five officers during what had been a peaceful protest against the police killings of black men in Minnesota and Louisiana.

Police say nine people were arrested after demonstrators took to the streets of Atlanta for a second night to protest police shootings of African-Americans.

Atlanta police spokeswoman Kim Jones said Sunday that the latest arrests involved some of the 100 protesters who marched through the heart of the city, chanting and blocking intersections.

It was a smaller crowd than Friday night, when several thousand flooded the streets. At least one person was arrested then as police kept marchers off a highway.

The protests erupted over police shootings of black men in Louisiana and Minnesota.

Federal agents are processing evidence as they try to trace the origin of the weapons used by the gunman in the protest attack that left five Dallas officers dead.

So far, authorities have not said whether they successfully identified the manufacturer and dealer of the weapon used by Micah Johnson.

William Temple, the Dallas special agent in charge for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said Sunday that about 30 agents are also involved in identifying bullet casings. The large crime scene includes the parking garage where Johnson was holed up for hours and at least two other spots where Johnson is believed to have fired at officers before being killed by police.

FBI and ATF agents are assisting Dallas police leading the investigation.

Activists and community leaders say they are monitoring the investigation of a fatal shooting in which two Houston police officers killed a man who authorities say had pointed a gun at officers after ignoring commands to drop the weapon.

The Houston chapters of the NAACP and Black Lives Matter say they're waiting for more details about the Saturday shooting of 38-year-old Alva Braziel.

Some people say surveillance video from a nearby gas station shows Braziel had his hands up before being shot.

The video is dark and it's hard to see clearly what Braziel might have had in his hand and what happened in the moments before officers fired.

Houston police spokeswoman Jodi Silva said Sunday her agency is asking people to withhold judgment until all the evidence is reviewed.

A 37-year-old Texas woman who was wounded when she threw herself over her son during the attack on a Dallas protest march says she would go to another demonstration to show she's not a quitter.

Shetamia Taylor, who attended the march with her four sons, also thanked Dallas police for protecting her in the chaos that erupted Thursday night. She says officers shielded her as bullets whizzed through the air around them.

Taylor says she always held police officers "in a very high place" and notes that her youngest son wants to be a cop. She says not all police officers are bad.

Taylor was one of two civilians wounded in the attack, which killed five Dallas officers and injured seven others. The protest was one of many in the U.S. after black men were fatally shot by police in Minnesota and Louisiana.

Missouri police say an off-duty officer fatally shot a man who was trying to enter the officer's home, and a relative says the two had been arguing on Facebook about the Black Lives Matter movement.

St. Louis County police say 20-year-old Tyler Gebhard threw a concrete planter through a window to enter the officer's Lakeshire home Saturday evening. The officer, who wasn't identified, then shot him.

Police say Gebhard was known to the family and had recently made online threats toward them.

An uncle of Gebhard's, Patrick Brogan, of Waterloo, Illinois, told The St. Louis Post-Dispatch (http://j.mp/29r2hhC) Gebhard and the officer had been arguing on Facebook. He said Gebhard, who was biracial, empathized with the objectives of the Black Lives Matter group.

Police Chief Jon Belmar says the officer is on leave.

The White House says President Barack Obama will travel to Dallas on Tuesday and deliver remarks at an interfaith memorial service.

The service will take place at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center. The White House says Obama is making the trip at the invitation of Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings.

Five officers were killed and seven were wounded when a gunman opened fire on a protest march in Dallas on Thursday.

The attack occurred shortly after Obama had arrived for a NATO summit in Poland. He cut his visit to Spain short by a day and has spoken daily during the trip about the attacks, calling for police and protesters to "listen to each other."

The sister of the woman who was shot while shielding her children from the Dallas gunman's bullets says the family hopes she will be released from the hospital Sunday.

Speaking at a town hall meeting in Dallas, Theresa Williams says her sister is "doing much better."

Shetamia Taylor and her four sons attended the downtown Dallas protest against police killings of blacks Thursday. Relatives say she threw herself over her boys when a gunman opened fire on the march, leaving her with a shattered leg and one of the boys spattered in blood.

Five officers were killed and seven were wounded by the sniper. Taylor was one of two civilians who were also wounded.

The Minnesota woman who shot video of her dying boyfriend after a police officer shot him last week says she realized the traffic stop was different when she heard fear in the officer's voice.

Lavish "Diamond" Reynolds called into a Sunday morning service at The Potter's House, a Dallas megachurch, to talk about the death of her boyfriend, Philando Castile.

Reynolds says that when she heard the officer, "it instantly clicked to me that this was something bigger than myself and Phil."

Reynolds cried as she recounted the shooting and said her daughter, who was shown on camera comforting her, is still telling her "it's gonna be OK."

The killing of Castile outside St. Paul and another black man in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, touched off protests. On Thursday, a gunman opened fire on police at one such protest in Dallas, killing five officers.

Police say a vehicle struck a Dallas police car parked outside the home of one of five officers slain during a protest last week.

Fort Worth police say they are investigating whether the crash was an accident or deliberate.

Authorities are trying to locate the vehicle, which sped away after smashing into the driver's side of the police car around 1 a.m. Sunday.

Nobody was hurt.

Two Dallas officers were assigned to the marked patrol car, but officials didn't immediately say whether the officers were in the vehicle.

Authorities say the lone sniper in the Dallas attack was killed early Friday when an explosive on a remote-controlled police robot was detonated.

Police have arrested about 100 people in St. Paul during protests of the recent police killings of black men, including one outside Minnesota's capital city.

Authorities say 21 police officers were hurt during the fracas late Saturday and early Sunday.

St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman and Police Chief Todd Axtell are condemning the violence. Axtell calls the pelting of officers with rocks, bottles and other objects "a disgrace."

The Star Tribune (http://strib.mn/29qNWkj) reports about half the arrests came during a blockade of Interstate 94 in St. Paul. About 50 arrests were made early Sunday in another part of St. Paul. The interstate reopened early Sunday morning.

The protest was among several demonstrations nationwide following the deaths of 32-year-old Philando Castile in suburban St. Paul and 37-year-old Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

San Antonio police say shots fired overnight near the department headquarters hit the building, but nobody was hurt.

Chief William McManus says investigators are trying to determine whether the building was targeted Saturday night or if someone was randomly firing.

Police detained one person for questioning after the man was seen running from the area.

Five police officers were killed after a sniper opened fire Thursday night in Dallas during a protest against the killings of black men last week by police officers in Louisiana and Minnesota.

Several San Antonio police officers who were in the headquarters Saturday night reported hearing gunshots. McManus says several shell casings were found in a nearby alley.

President Barack Obama says protesters who attack police officers are doing a disservice to their cause.

Obama said in Madrid after meeting with Spain's acting prime minister that one of the great things about America is that individuals and groups can protest and speak truth to power. He says the process is sometimes messy and controversial, but the ability to engage in free speech has improved America.

Obama also cautions that if protesters paint police with a broad brush, they could lose allies for their cause. At the same time, he says that when police organizations acknowledge there is a problem stemming from bias, it will contribute to solutions.

Obama is cutting his first visit to Spain a day short because of a series of deadly shootings in the U.S.

Dallas police chief David Brown says the suspect in the deadly attack on Dallas police officers scrawled letters in his own blood on the walls of the parking garage where officers cornered and later killed him.

Brown told CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday that Micah Johnson wrote lettering in blood before heading upstairs and writing more in his own blood. He says the 25-year-old Army veteran wrote the letters "RB," and that investigators are looking through things found in his suburban Dallas home to try to figure out what he may have meant by that.

The chief defended the decision to kill Johnson using a robot-delivered bomb, saying negotiations went nowhere and trying to "get him" in some other way would have put his officers in danger.

Brown says that during the roughly two-hour standoff in the garage, Johnson lied to and taunted the police negotiators.

Authorities say Johnson killed five police officers and wounded seven others and two civilians during an attack at a protest over last week's killings by police of black men in Louisiana and Minnesota.

The gunman who killed five police officers at a protest march had practiced military-style drills in his yard and trained at a private self-defense school that teaches special tactics, including "shooting on the move," a maneuver in which an attacker fires and changes position before firing again.

Micah Johnson, an Army veteran, received instruction at the Academy of Combative Warrior Arts in the Dallas suburb of Richardson about two years ago, said the school's founder and chief instructor, Justin J. Everman.

Everman's statement was corroborated by a police report from May 8, 2015, when someone at a business a short distance away called in a report of several suspicious people in a parked SUV.

The investigating officer closed the case just minutes after arriving at a strip mall. While there, the officer spoke to Johnson, who said he "had just gotten out of a class at a nearby self-defense school."

The owner of a community social services organization says the gunman who killed five police officers at a Dallas protest march worked for his organization.

Dallas-based Touch of Kindness subcontracts with the state to provide care for people with disabilities.

Owner Jeppi Carnegie says that Micah Johnson was paid to care for his brother, who was in his early 20s.

Carnegie said Johnson, until his death this week, received an hourly wage to look after his brother at the home in Mesquite where both men lived with their mother. Carnegie said he spoke with Johnson only once by phone, for less than a minute, and only then to confirm that he would be taking care of his brother.

Johnson was killed Friday morning by police.