Washington and new york and as the evening goes west with the time zones, in cities across this country. Our coverage continues here, of course. For the top of the next hour, we will throw it to chris hayes in dallas, texas. Chris . Brian, thank you very much. Good evening from dallas. Im chris hayes. This is msnbcs continuing live coverage of the deadly ambush attacks on police in this city last night. Not too far from where we are right now. As peaceful protests continue tonight in cities across the country like you are seeing, tonight in atlanta, last night here in dallas, a gunman opened fire on 12 officers, killing five of them. Two civilians were also wounded in the attack. The events unfolded at the end of a protest march over the recent Police Shootings of africanamerican men in louisiana and minnesota. Cell phone video from the scene last night captured the rapid barrage of gunfire as Police Rushed to the scene. [ gunfire ] the suspected gunman is dead, identified today as 25yearold Micah Xavier Johnson, u. S. Army reservist who served in afghanistan and had no criminal history. A search of his home in a dallas suburb found bomb making materials, ballistic vests, rifles, ammunition as well as a personal journal of combat tactics. Investigators believe he was the lone gunman, as authorities said this Morning Police had cornered johnson in a parking garage last night but after hours of negotiating, they say they had no other option but to detonate a bomb to end the standoff. Moments ago, dallas mayor Mike Rawlings described how police delivered the bomb that killed the shooter. The same automated robot equipment to detonate and defuse
bombs was used to place c4 in place and to detonate that. This was a man that we gave plenty of options to to give himself up peacefully and we spent a lot of time talking. He had a choice to come out and we would not harm him, or stay in and we would. He picked the latter. Dallas police chief david brown said this morning that during the standoff the shooter told officers he was angry about the deadly Police Shootings in louisiana and minnesota, that he wanted to target white Police Officers. He was upset about black lives matter. He said he was upset about the recent Police Shootings. The suspect said he was upset at white people. The suspect stated he wanted to kill white people, especially white officers. Nbcs craig melvin has been covering the story here in dallas all day long and joins me now with more. For folks that are getting home right now from work and tuning in to a story that maybe they left this morning or last night, lets just sort of compare what we thought happened last night and what we know now. At one point last night it appeared as if there were multiple shooters, for instance. At this point according to officials at least, one lone shooter, it looks like this 25yearold managed to go from floor to floor in one building. He was shooting and moving. At one point it looked like there were multiple weapons involved. At this point it looks like, this is some information we have just gotten in the last hour, it was an sks rifle and hand gun. An sks rifle is one of these long guns, typically used in a semiautomatic fashion. Its from the 40s originally, traces back to the old soviet union. But this was his weapon of choice. The investigation behind this, very much an active crime scene. You have 20 blocks of downtown
dallas still shut down for the better part of the morning and the afternoon. You had Police Officers literally Walking Around looking for shell casings, picking up the shell casings. Last night also there had been indications that the shooter had when cornered threatened that there were ieds that were unexploded, that were left all around the city. My sense is that that has essentially been cleared by police. Police this morning said they found two suspicious devices. We did not hear that those devices even had to be detonated. Yeah, it sounded like sounds as if there were no bombs planted. We had the other thing we heard this morning, it was confusing throughout the day, are there other suspects. This line from the chief last night that i think everyone found chilling in the extreme which was multiple shooters triang la triangu lating. The other three suspects, one has been charged with an unrelated weapons charge but they have also been cleared . That is our understanding. However, during that news conference, there still seemed
to be a bit of ambiguitie. But they insist he acted alone, lone gunman, but this was also clearly based on what was hauled out of that apartment today, according to officials, this guy had been planning this for some time and its actually a bit surprising to a lot of folks that more people didnt lose their lives here in dallas. Craig melvin, thank you for that. Always good to have you on the scene. Thank you very much. Last nights violence interrupted what had been a peaceful demonstration in the wake of recent Police Involved shootings. Dallas officers on the scene were even posing for pictures with protesters during the march. Soon after the shots broke out, Dallas Police wrongly identified demonstrator mark hughes, who was legally carrying a rifle during the protest as a suspect in the case. After the shooting, hughes promptly turned over his legal firearm to authorities and later turned himself in to authorities once he learned take his photograph had been made public in connection with the shooting. Im joined by mark hughes along with his along with sarah of
the dallas morning news. Great to have you here. You were on the scene last night, right . Right. I got there about 30 minutes after the shooting began. Immediate aftermath. What was the scene like . It was really tense. At that point, officers did not know whether the scene was secure. It was not secure. Thats why they didnt know where the suspect was. So there were a lot of tense interactions between police who were trying to protect the public and the public, who were still upset from the protest and media who were trying to get closer to see what was going on. At one point, there were media, i was one of them, lying on a hill, a grassy hill, getting down because the officers were instructing us to get down because we didnt know if there would be more violence but still trying to capture what was going on. You could today, you can appreciate the raw level of chaos that it appears this one individual armed with two guns, with it appears some degree of training, served in afghanistan, we will talk a little about that, the sense that i have seen
from every witness, from everyone on the ground was that this was a coordinated attack by multiple individuals. Did it feel that way in the aftermath . Right. It did. Because at the time, we didnt know there was no identified shooter or suspect. We were hearing multiple suspects. There were arrests on i35 interstate at the same time as being a shooter who was trapped in the parking garage. There were multiple things going on. I was told by witnesses at the time of the shooting bullets were bouncing around, just sounded like there might have been multiple people shooting. What was your sense of the atmosphere among the Police Officers who must have been at the peak level of adrenaline, also in the wake as the news comes back, i have seen some heartwrenching photos and total grief. I mean, they were very very stoic. A lot of them really were just standing guard stoically all night and in the tense moments they were very concerned about protecting those still on the
scene, still watching. One screamed, said get back, get back, this is not a video game, we dont want more casualties here. They just wanted people to take it seriously. Sarah mervosh, thank you very much. Really appreciate it. We are learning more about the victims of the attack, among those who lost their lives in tr tragedy are michael krol, from michigan, who spent the last eight years with the Dallas Police. Patrick zamarripa of the Dallas Police department, father of two who spent eight years on active duty with the u. S. Navy serving three tours of duty in iraq. And 43yearold brent thompson, a Dallas Area Rapid Transit Authority officer who had married a colleague just two weeks ago. Im joined by the d. A. R. T. Police chief, james spiller. I want to First Express our condolences for your loss. Thank you very much. How are you doing . We are hanging in there. Its been a long day. Same thing for our officers. But everyones hanging in there. They still have their heads held high. We are going to get through this. We took a good shot. Well bounce back. What was going through your mind as this played out last night, as you were starting to get the initial reports . You know, it was almost unbelievable. Because you think not in dallas. Thats just not something we are known for in dallas. But you know, reality sets in, thats the world that we deal with today. So we quickly, the officers quickly responded with the way they had been trained. I think what was really great was you saw two different departments perform as if they were one. They immediately made sure the protesters were trying to get them to safety, so while others were running away, they were running in, then trying to get back to the officers, engage the suspect. It was a total Team Approach the way we expect them to train. I have to tell you, our department, d. A. R. T. Police department, Dallas Policedepartment, performed admirably and had they not reacted the way they did, i think we would have seen far greater casualties and injuries with persons that were there for that march. This comes on i think i got to say one of the worst weeks i have ever covered in american life. It feels profoundly upsetting whats happened this week. How are you feeling and what do you want to tell folks that are watching this develop . You know, i tell you, its heartbreaking. Just what you see in America Today with the way police lets say granted, there are some things we havent performed admirably all the time but we made sure we have taken actions to correct those. We are continuously taking those actions. The president came out with a task force with what did he call his task force, 21st Century Policing with different pillars that everyone is seeking to
adhere to. I was just recently at the white house participating in the discussion on those pillars. We are training to those pillars in that department, i know here in the north texas region they are all training to those. But we cant train to what we are seeing from the public. What do you mean by that . The incident last night. There seemed to be a total disregard for what police are here to do. I say we lost two individuals last night that are veterans that served in iraq. So they went and served our country by helping other countries and yet, they come back to our soil and they are killed not by someone on a foreign soil. Thats disturbing. Its unbearably disturbing. Do you think about that as this lone individual with an axe to grind, with a sick set of beliefs that he acted upon . Do you think that that is something you attach to the broader public . I dont think its the broader public because i can tell by the support that we have
gotten today, yesterday and that we continually get from the north texas area, the state of texas. I have gotten emails, calls from throughout the united states, toronto, canada, london, england. So its not prevalent but we have to figure out how do we tackle these type of individuals. There are a lot of things that we have to deal with. If individuals need help we need to make sure that we have the social Service Organizations thats willing to give them help and we have to address the broader issue. You know, this was a lone individual but this is a bigger issue. Chief spiller, i really appreciate you taking the time. I appreciate you having us. Thank you. Send my regards to all your officers. We sure will. Thanks a lot for having me. As we mentioned, nbc news has confirmed the identity of the suspected shooter as former Army ReservistMicah Xavier Johnson from mesquite, texas. Authorities are trying to piece together what happened last night and what drove the alleged shooter to commit this mass murder. For more on that i turned to msnbcs Jacob Rascone outside the shooters house in mesquite. What have we learned about this individual . Reporter we have actually learned a lot in the last hour or so because we have had detectives and atf agents going inside the house for several hours today. We just learned what they found. This is the mesquite neighborhood where neighbors say he grew up, then behind me, im going to show you, this is the home where neighbors say he lived with his mother for many years. As i said, detectives and agents were in and out for many hours. They found bomb making materials, ballistic vests, rifles, ammunition, and some sort of journal that documented some Tactical Training that he was undergoing. One of the neighbors who we talked to lived just behind the gunmans house, says that he noticed that in the backyard, the gunman would dress up in his
army uniform and carry his rifle and would go through sort of obstacle courses that he would build in his backyard. Now we know that police are telling us that he was training heavily from some sort of attack that may very well have been inspired this week by the shootings that he saw, officerinvolved shootings of black men. His aunt tells nbc news that she believes thats what drove him to do what he did. Chris . Jacob, my understanding is as of now, investigators have been fairly definitive about no links to other groups, no sort of plot, no sort of conspiracy, that this appears to be the work of this one individual. Reporter in fact, thats true. We had all morning, we thought, because the police chief and others were saying that there might have been more than one sniper shooting from above, but in fact, multiple senior Law Enforcement officials during the day told nbc news that they
believed after looking at more of the evidence and what they found inside of this home, that he was the lone gunman and in fact, just an hour ago or so, the mayor came out and said that we believe he was the lone gunman and the city is safe. What the investigation is now looking into is whether there were any coconspirators or anybody like his mother, a neighbor, anybody who might have known about the attack beforehand. That investigation is ongoing. All right. We should stress we have no evidence in that direction. Thank you very much. As we mentioned earlier, soon after the shots broke out last night, Dallas Police wrongly identified demonstrator mark hughes, who is legally carrying a rifle during the protest, as a suspect in the case. After the shooting, hughes promptly turned over his legal firearm to authorities, who later turned himself in to authorities once he learned his photograph had been made public in connection with the shooting. Joining me now is mark hughes and his brother, cory. I want to start by saying it is great relief to see you safe
after lft night. That was a terrifying moment. Absolutely. Take me through what happened last night. Well, i decided to come to a protest. I wore my firearm. Everything was peaceful. It was an enjoyable moment and then chaos broke out. Once the chaos broke out, i was i found out i was a suspect in murdering Police Officers. How did you find out your picture was circulating as a suspect . I received a phone call. I received a phone call that i had just been seen on a media outlet which it did surprise me because my brother had just did an interview and i was in the background so i took it as they were telling me they seen me on the news, and they notified me that no, you were a suspect in the shooting. You saw that image of your
brother circulating and what did do you then . Well, i went into panic mode, number one. Then i went into defense mode. I thought that it was imperative at that time for me to reach out to the authorities and let the authorities know that hey, my brother was accounted for, the weapon that he brought down, he turned over to the Law Enforcement when chaos broke out and i thought it was important for me to clear his name immediately because i was afraid for his life. Like i have been telling people all day, we were here protesting a young man that was killed by the cops because he was legally carrying a firearm. So to heighten things, cops were being shot at here in dallas, hes a young black man with a gun, let me hurry up and let them know that it wasnt him. What was going, when the shots rang out, it seems so, from the folks we talked to and the coverage we have seen, it just seemed so unthinkable to everyone there. What was flashing through your mind when you heard that sound . Well, i actually didnt hear
the sound. While i was in the crowd, we couldnt hear it. We just seen a multitude of people running back. I actually thought it was maybe a fight that had happened. So i actually didnt hear any shots rang out. I heard them. It was quite scary. I was in the front of the protest with some of the other organizers and we were actually ending a peaceful night of protesting and then you heard just rapid fire. Some louder, some quicker in succession, and you know, the first thing i thought was orlando. I thought someone had come in and started shooting and i didnt know what direction he was coming from. So once i kind of got my bearings, i took off running and started instructing people to go back the opposite direction. After that, my next thought was let me find him so we can make sure we get this firearm into the authorities possession. You described the night of protests as peaceful which everyone has talked about and shown pictures of. Talk about the protest before those shots rang out. Well, i think it was just a
moment of us being in unity and letting the citizens of dallas know that we stand with ferguson, we stand with louisiana, we stand with minnesota, because some of the same issues they have there, we have here except for a lot of them havent been caught on camera. We wanted to let people know that we stand in s