Dallas police HQ attack: Suspect killed during standoff

CNN – by Ben Brumfield and Joe Sutton

(CNN)[Breaking news update, published at 2:03 p.m. ET]

The suspect in the Dallas police headquarters shooting is dead, Dallas police said Saturday afternoon on Twitter.

Earlier, police said SWAT officers shot him around 5 a.m. CT Saturday while he was in a van in the parking lot of a suburban restaurant, but they didn’t immediately check on him because they wanted to disarm the van after the suspect told them that the vehicle contained C-4 explosives.  

(CNN)[Breaking news update, published at 10:12 a.m. ET]

SWAT team snipers “shot at the suspect … through the front windshield of the van, striking the suspect,” Dallas Police Chief David Brown said Saturday morning of a man suspected of spraying the Dallas police headquarters with bullets hours earlier.

A bomb tech robot is being used “to try and confirm whether the suspect is deceased” in a van at a suburban Dallas restaurant parking lot, Brown said at a Saturday morning news conference.

Because the suspect claimed his van “was rigged with explosives,” authorities will have a “planned detonation … at that van,” according to Brown.

After earlier stating witnesses had seen as many as four suspects, the police chief said that authorities now believe there’s only one suspect.

“(Police) believe this suspect meant to kill officers and took time to discharge that weapon multiple times to accomplish” this goal, Brown said.

The chief said bullet holes were found in not only squad cars but in the police headquarters’ front lobby, its information desk, a helicopter that’s inside as a museum piece, and on the building’s second floor.

During negotiations, the suspect “would get angry (and) rant” until, “at some point, negotiations just ceased … on his end,” according to Brown.

“We don’t yet know motive,” the chief added, noting that authorities currently don’t see anything indicating this type of attack was coming.

(CNN)[Breaking news update, posted at 7:38 a.m. ET]

Dallas police found a total of two explosive devices near their headquarters; all suspicious packages found there have now been cleared, police tweeted early Saturday. Police published photos of dozens of bullet holes shot through their headquarters’ windows.

[Breaking news update, posted at 7:04 a.m. ET]

— “Dallas SWAT disabled the suspect vehicle with a .50 cal rifle. Standoff is ongoing,” Dallas police said on its confirmed Twitter account Saturday morning.

— Explosives experts detonated an explosive device found under a police vehicle, police said in a tweet. No one was injured. Officers are also investigating a suspicious package at a police substation.

[Previous story, posted at 6:51 a.m. ET]

(CNN) — Attackers opened fire on Dallas police headquarters early Saturday, then an armored van parked in front of the building drove off and rammed a squad car, authorities said.

Police returned fire, and the van fled with the suspects.

After the attack, police found suspicious bags near the headquarters. At least one contained explosives, prompting evacuations from areas around the police headquarters.

As an explosives robot approached one of them, it blew up, Maj. Max Geron tweeted. No one was injured.

Authorities believe up to four people may have opened fire from various locations with automatic weapons, including from the van, said Police Chief David Brown.

“There might be up to four suspects,” Brown said.

Witnesses told police about the nature of the vehicle and the weapons used.

Windows shattered

Windows shattered at police headquarters, and bullets pierced squad cars, but no one has been injured.

Police gave chase as one or more suspects jumped into the van, but one appeared not to make it on board on time, Brown said. It’s unclear whether that suspect was arrested.

The attackers and officers exchanged gunfire then police cornered the van in a fast food restaurant parking lot near an interstate.

“There is currently a standoff with what appears to be an armored vehicle in the Dallas suburb of Hutchins, Texas, around I-20 and I-45,” said Maj. Max Geron.

Security has been beefed up at Dallas police stations and at Dallas City Hall, he said.

SWAT team negotiates

A SWAT team is negotiating with a suspect, who gave the name James Boulware, but police said that they cannot independently confirm that it is the suspect’s real identity.

Police found a previous record of domestic violence by a man under that name. The suspect told police that he was angry because they took away his child and labeled him a terrorist.

He threatened to blow them up and broke off negotiations, Brown said.

At police headquarters, officers noticed suspicious bags, which explosives specialists were inspecting. They found pipe bombs in one of them. Later, police reported the explosion of a bag as an explosive ordnance robot tried to move it.

Former marine eyewitness

The crackling sound of the shootout got the attention of former marine Rick Birt, who lives near the police headquarters.

“We heard loud noises, my wife asked if I thought they were shots,” he said.”I went over to the window and put one of them up. And we heard more shots being fired, and I turned to my wife and said, ‘yeah, that’s definitely gunfire.”

He got his cell phone and recorded video. After the van fled, police informed him and his wife that they had to evacuate their building.

“They’ve instructed us that we may be out of our home for a while,” he said.

Police had discovered the suspicious bags right across from it.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/13/us/dallas-police-headquarters-shooting/

15 thoughts on “Dallas police HQ attack: Suspect killed during standoff”

  5. who attacks a police station with Jade Helm nearby?
    or is this an excuse for the Homeland to Eradicate Local Militants?

    Reply

  7. “The suspect told police that he was angry because they took away his child and labeled him a terrorist.”

    This is the most credible sounding statement in the article. If I were to believe ANY reason given for this incident (assuming it’s true to begin with), this one would likely be at the top of the list.

    “They’ve instructed us that we may be out of our home for a while,” he said.”

    To give them time to ransack it and steal anything of value.

    Reply

  9. Good job, crawford.

    “But right now, let’s sum it up:

    A “mentally ill”, antisemitic guy who’s been on law enforcement radar (and probably FBI if he was charged with making terrorist threats) shows up at a police department late in the evening (so there wont be many people on the streets) in a salvaged SWAT armored vehicle and starts shooting at no one in front of police headquarters hitting no one.
    He somehow takes the time to plant some bombs around the building, one goes off, in a place where no one would be.
    He then (along with accomplices) drives away in the van after shooting no one, like he’s trying to escape.
    He makes it to a place where there just happens to be folks on the rooftops waiting with cameras and decides that’s a great place to stop his van in the middle of the street and have a big shootout right there.
    Then he leaves.
    Now he’s in a standoff with the cops talking to them on his cell phone making sure to give us all his name so we can look him up and find out he’s crazy and has promised to go on shooting sprees in the past.”

    Anna Nicole married for love, too.

    Reply

  10. And anyway, what are the odds of all these evenly-spaced “shootings”? It’s like they’re on some type of schedule. There’s never 2-3 in one day, one and then another one the next day, etc…they’re all evenly spaced in the “news”. And never a huge lull.

    So these independent, non-connected “shootings”, these guys must meet and say, “OK, it’s US this week, you guys at this part of the country next week, you guys 3 weeks from now, we need to let the ‘news’ have a few days on each shooting until the next one.”

    Reply

  11. “(Police Chief) Brown added that the reports from eyewitnesses (plural meaning verified by several eyewitnesses) concerning the number of attackers were apparently mistaken. Initial accounts (plural AGAIN) said there may have been four, but it later turned out that just one person was responsible.RT”

    Typical trademark false flag tactic. There are always multiple shooters until finally they get it down to only ONE. Classic.

    https://willyloman.wordpress.com/2015/06/13/dallas-pd-standoff-psyop-what-we-know-so-far/

    Good find, Crawford.

    Reply

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