Following the deadly ambush by snipers that shot 11 officers, killing five, downtown Dallas remained on lock-down Friday morning.
According to Dallas Police Chief David Brown, three people were in custody and a fourth suspect, who battled with police in a gunfight at a parking garage was “neutralized” around 2:45 a.m. (3:45 ET), NBC News reported.
That suspect had earlier told police negotiators that “the end is coming, and he’s going to hurt and kill more of us — meaning law enforcement — and that there are bombs all over the place in this garage and in downtown,” Brown said at a news conference.
The police chief confirmed Friday that a suspect had been killed when police detonated a bomb near him after efforts to negotiate with him had failed. During the standoff the suspect had told police, they will “eventually find the IEDs” adding more tension to the scene in Dallas.
It appears from most reports that the “neutralized” suspect and the one Brown said was killed by a bomb are the same.
Brown described Thursday evening’s shooting as “ambush-style” with at least two snipers firing from an elevated position at police officers who were protecting demonstrators during an otherwise peaceful protest over deadly shootings by police in other cities.
NBC News reported:
“We believe that these suspects were positioning themselves in a way to triangulate on these officers from two different perches in garages in the downtown area, and planned to injure and kill as many law enforcement officers as they could,” he told a news conference — noting that some victims were shot in the back.
Other suspects might still be at large. “We’re hopeful that we have got everybody but we don’t know that for sure,” Dallas mayor Mike Rawlings told NBC’s TODAY.
He said the suspects in custody were “being pretty tight lipped” but their motives were clear. “It’s simple … they wanted to kill police officers and sadly they did.”
Police distributed a photo of one man described as a “person of interest” but when the man, Mark Hughes, turned himself in and was questioned by police, he was cleared of any connection with the attackers.
As the tense scene continued to unfold Thursday night, social media captured many moments as they happened. One video showed a man being arrested and taken into custody, though it was not clear whether he was a suspected shooter or not.
