The attack was one of the worst mass shootings of police in US history.
White House officials have spoken with Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings about the shooting that turned the downtown of one of the largest US cities into a sprawling crime scene, unfolding along streets that house major corporations, restaurants and government offices.
Our worst nightmare has happened. It is a heartbreaking moment for the city of Dallas
The scene in downtown Dallas was chaotic, with helicopters hovering overhead and officers with automatic rifles on the street corners.
“Everyone just started running,” Devante Odom, 21, told The Dallas Morning News. “We lost touch with two of our friends just trying to get out of there.”
Carlos Harris, who lives downtown, told the newspaper that the shooters “were strategic. It was tap, tap pause. Tap, tap pause”, he said.
One witness at the rally spoke of “complete pandemonium”.
“There was blacks, whites, latinos, everybody. There was a mixed community here protesting. And this just came out of nowhere,” Cory Hughes, a brother of the man who turned himself in and was cleared, told CNN.
“I’m still kind of startled, shaken up. As you know being in the front, it’s almost like the gunshots were coming at us. It was complete pandemonium ... It’s bananas.”
We are leaving every motive on the table on why this happened and how this happened
Shetamia Taylor, has been the only civilian reported to have been wounded in the shooting.
A family member said a protester who was shot when snipers opened fire on police at a rally in Dallas was shielding her sons when she was injured. A sister of 37-year-old Shetamia Taylor says Taylor was at the protests on Thursday night with her four sons, ages 12 to 17. Theresa Williams says that when the shooting began, Taylor threw herself over her sons.
She was undergoing surgery early on Friday after being shot in the right calf. Williams says two of Taylor’s sons became separated from their mother in the chaotic aftermath. She says they’re now stuck behind a police barricade at a hotel near a parking garage where police exchanged gunfire with a suspect.
No specific motive has been given for the shootings at the downtown protest, one of many held in major cities across the United States on Thursday. New York police made more than a dozen arrests on Thursday night, while protesters briefly shut down one of Chicago’s main arteries.
Dallas Police Chief David Brown said the shooters, some in elevated positions, used sniper rifles to fire at the officers in what appeared to be a coordinated attack.
“[They were] working together with rifles, triangulating at elevated positions in different points in the downtown area where the march ended up going,” Brown told a news conference, adding a civilian was also wounded.
“It has been a devastating night. We are sad to report a fifth officer has died,” Dallas police said on Twitter.
Mayor Rawlings advised people to stay away on Friday morning as police combed the area where large areas have been cordoned off and transport halted. Federal authorities also halted commercial air traffic for the area as police helicopters hovered over the scene.
“Our worst nightmare has happened,” the mayor said. “It is a heartbreaking moment for the city of Dallas.”
The Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area is one of the nation’s most populous and is home to more than seven million people.
The shooting happened as otherwise largely peaceful protests unfolded around the United States after the shooting of Philando Castile, 32, by police near St Paul, Minnesota, late on Wednesday. His girlfriend posted live video on the internet of the bloody scene minutes afterward, which was widely viewed.
The suspect in the Texas stand-off had told police “the end is coming” and that more police were going to be hurt and killed. Brown said the suspect also told police “there are bombs all over the place in this garage and downtown”.
Police said they were questioning two occupants of a Mercedes they had pulled over after the vehicle sped off on a downtown street with a man who threw a camouflaged bag inside the back of the car. A woman was also taken into custody near the garage where the standoff was taking place.
“We are leaving every motive on the table on why this happened and how this happened,” Brown said.
Rawlings visited the wounded at Parkland hospital, the same hospital where President John F. Kennedy was taken after he was shot in Dallas in November 1963.
Outside, officers stood in formation and saluted as bodies of the officers were about to be transported.
One of the officers killed has been identified. He is Brent Thompson, 43, and an officer with Dallas Area Rapid Transit.
Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse
