Dallas Police Shooting – 5 Facts You Need to Know

5 police officers killed by snipers at a Black Lives Matter protest in Dallas, Texas.

Authorities say they believe the attack in Dallas that killed five police officers and injured six others was carried out by at least four snipers who positioned themselves in “triangulated locations” on rooftops near the end of a Black Lives Matter rally on Thursday.

Police believe there were at least 4 Snipers

There were about 800 protestors and 100 police officers in the crowd when the shooting began around 8:45 p.m, according to the New York Times reports. Dallas Police Chief David O. Brown reports that police believe that there were at least four different snipers positioned above the end of the parade, specifically targeting law enforcement officers. Brown told the press on Thursday night that, “We believe that these suspects were positioning themselves in a way to triangulate on these officers.” Brown added, “Some [officers] were shot in the back.”

“[They were] working together with rifles, triangulating at elevated positions in different points in the downtown area where the march ended up going,” Brown said. “[They] planned to injure and kill as many law enforcement officers as they could.”

Brown told reporters that least one civilian was also injured in the shooting. Shetamia Taylor, 37, was reportedly blocking her four sons from the gunfire when she was struck in the calf by a bullet. Her sister told the Associated Press she underwent surgery for the wound early Friday morning.

One suspect allegedly threatened to kill more police officers

Police were assisted by the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Eventually, police apprehended three suspects and took them into custody. In addition, a cornered fourth suspect inside a parking garage early this morning was later died after prolonged negotiations that included the exchange of gunfire from what’s been reported as a self-inflicted gunshot, though police have not yet confirmed his death.

During the standoff, he allegedly warned police “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 downtown,” Brown said.

At one point, federal authorities reportedly stopped commercial air traffic over Dallas to allow for helicopters to sweep the area. Primary and secondary bomb sweeps stopped around 3 a.m. yielding no evidence of explosives, Dallas Police Department major Max Geron said on Twitter early Friday morning.

At a press conference Thursday night, police initially identified a man photographed on the parade route with a rifle across his back as a “suspect,” who was later downgraded to a “person of interest.” Hist photograph was released by Dallas police and broadcast by several news outlets before it was clear he was Mark Hughes, the brother of one of the rally organizers, who apparently turned his gun over to a police officer as soon as the shooting began.

The suspects currently in custody include two people who “were seen with a camouflage bag getting into a black Mercedes” and driving away at a high speed, and a woman, who was arrested near the garage.

The Dallas police shooting suspects are not telling police much.

On Thursday, Chief Brown indicated the suspects were not telling the police much to go on and authorities are not confident they have everyone involved in custody. “We just are not getting the cooperation we’d like, to know that answer of why, the motivation, who they are,” he said.

The suspects, Brown argued, appeared to have some familiarity with the parade route.

President Obama calls the shooting “vicious, calculated and despicable”

“How would you know to post up there?” he told the New York Times. “So we’re leaving every motive on the table of how this happened and why this happened… We have yet to determine whether or not there was some complicity with the planning of this, but we will be pursuing that.”