The gunman who killed five police officers in Dallas was “changed” by his experience in the US military, his mother has said.
Micah Johnson went from being an extrovert to a “hermit”, Delphine Johnson told The Blaze website. “The military was not what Micah thought it would be,” she said. “He was very disappointed.”
Johnson opened fire at a protest being held over the deaths of African Americans at the hands of police. The demonstrations, echoed nationwide, followed the police killings of Philando Castile in Minnesota and Alton Sterling in Louisiana, BBC reported.
Bomb-making material, rifles and a combat journal were found at the home of Johnson, who was himself killed.
“I don’t know what to say to anybody to make anything better. I didn’t see it coming,” James Johnson, his father, told the website. “I love my son with all my heart. I hate what he did.”
Dallas police chief, David Brown, said all of the officers are on edge after the events and that his family has received death threats. He said 13 officers used force against Johnson during the standoff, in which Johnson was killed by a robot bomb. Killing Johnson was “not an ethical dilemma”, he said.
“We’re going to turn over every rock” to make sure Johnson was the only person planning the attack, he said, and that the department is following “any and all leads”.
Brown suggested angry young black people in the US join their local police departments and try to become “part of the solution”.
