A suspect is dead after he targeted Dallas officers in a brazen attack with gunfire and explosives at police headquarters early Saturday morning, authorities confirmed.
A sniper fired a single shot through the front windshield of the suspect’s armored van, striking him about five hours after a tense police standoff began, Chief David Brown told reporters.
They publicly confirmed his death just before 1 p.m. local time.
Police identified the suspect at James Boulware, 35, of Paris, Tex. Cops said he blamed police for having lost custody of his son and for “accusing him of being a terrorist.”Police are still puzzled over the man’s motive, although the suspect said in negotiations that authorities were responsible for him losing custody of his child.
According to police, Boulware started his night of rampage around 12:30 a.m. by opening fire on officers outside the headquarters and dropping several pipe bombs around the building.
“It was very helter-skelter for a long while,” Chief David Brown said.
Bullets shattered glass and struck the front desk, where the person on duty just happened to have stepped away to get a soda. Boulware also fired on officers who drove up to confront him, riddling at least one squad car with bullets.
Anita Grendahl was asleep in her seventh-floor apartment across from the station when she heard the madness begin.
“We just woke up to a few pops and thought somebody was on my balcony,” she said, “and then looked outside and saw the van crash into the car.”
The van then fled, eventually stopping in a restaurant parking lot in the suburb of Hutchins, 13 miles from Dallas, where a standoff ensued.
The SWAT team tried to reason with Boulware, but negotiations deteriorated and cops were left with only one option.
It took police about eight hours to approach the vehicle to determine his status because it was laced with explosives, police said.At least two pipe bombs were found inside as the standoff came to a standstill.
As police intentionally detonated the area to clear it, the van caught fire “and rounds are going off inside,” Maj. Max Geron said.
The suspect masterminded a plot to shoot at the Jack Evans Police Headquarters from multiple angles, sending chills down the collective spine of the city with the ruse of there being several shooters.
He planted two additional explosives, including one underneath a squad car, near the Jack Evans Police Headquarters. One burst on its own and another was blown in a controlled detonation.
The pipe bombs included “lots of shrapnel,” such as screws and nails, Geron said.
No officers or civilians were injured — despite the suspect’s intent to kill officers — which was “the saving grace” of the ordeal, Brown said.
“Some officers say we’re very lucky,” Brown said. “I believe we’re blessed that our officers survived this ordeal.”
As police cars swarmed the parking lot, the armored car, with gunports on its sides, drove head-on into a squad car.
The suspect also shot through squad cars where police were sitting, and they “literally dodged bullets,” Brown said.
He then sped away in the midst of heavy gunfire, as seen in video shot from a rooftop across the street and uploaded by Twitter userMadhu.
Several other civilians shot video of gunfire in the streets “with bullets whizzing by their heads” and put the clips online, Brown said.
At one point during the melee, he called 911 and went on long “high-pitched” rants filled with anger, Brown said.That call allowed investigators to track a phone number to later call him for negotiations.
The suspect told police that they “took his child” and accused him of being a terrorist, and said he is going to “blow us up” in retaliation, Brown said. The man cut off negotiations after his threat.
He tried to make good on his promise, scattering “suspicious” duffel bags around the headquarters area.
One officer “nearly tripped over” a bomb in the dark, and could have died because the bombs were sensitive to the touch, Brown said.
One explosive detonated as a bomb-detecting robot was moving it.
Other apparent packages that authorities suspected to contain explosives turned out to be trash, police said.
The crazed man claimed his van was filled with explosives and officers did not want to call his bluff, using a camera-equipped robot to inspect the scene, Brown said.
SWAT snipers disabled the vehicle with two shots from a .50-caliber rifle to the engine at about 4:35 a.m., Geron said.
Police first attempted to blow through the window with a robot, but video shows the measure was unsuccessful, blasting the robot feet from the car.
Snipers pumped bullets through the windshield to allow access inside the vehicle, and police used an “explosive ‘water charge'” to render any explosives inside inert, Geron said.
Although the suspect claimed the vehicle was loaded with C4, none was found inside Saturday, police said, noting they now believe “black powder” was used in the pipe bomb.
Bomb technicians detonated areas around the van to clear it.
In 2013, Boulware allegedly threatened to kill all the adults in his family, and then go on shooting sprees in churches and schools armed with body armor and ammunition because they are “easy targets,” KTENreported.
Police found several guns in his house when he was arrested for those threats, which coincided with two other family assault charges and one marijuana possession charge he faced at the time.
The threat case was later dismissed because Boulware completed all court-imposed requirements, the Dallas Morning News reported.
Boulware was not on any terrorist watchlist and offered “no indication of threatening police officers,” Brown said.
He had made threats to judges in the past, and his social media profile “is awfully concerning,” Brown said.
His father, Jim, told the Morning News that Boulware lost custody of his son, who is now in middle school, after his arrests in 2013.
“He loved that boy” Jim Boulware said. “They never should have taken him away from him.”
Jim Boulware said his son struggled to find a good job after his arrests, and said he never expected his son could be capable of Saturday’s ordeal.
“I’m not saying he doesn’t have some problems of some kind…but you can push someone so far and everybody will break,” Boulware said.
James Boulware talked to himself “quite frequently and appears delusional,” his mother told police after he choked her in April 2013, according to court documents.
Boulware had been speaking “rudely” about religion and North and South Korea and then lunged for his mother when she said he was “going to hell,” the records show.
Boulware’s uncle then began fighting him to try and remove him from the apartment. The mom hit the uncle over the head with the laptop to end the fiasco, allowing Boulware to escape before police arrived, according to documents.
The father said he saw a strange van when his son came over to mow his lawn but assumed he bought it to live in if needed while traveling to a friend’s home in West Texas.
The van was purchased on Ebay by a Georgia trailer leasing company Jenco Sales Inc., CBS 11 confirmed.
The now-deleted listing for the vehicle on Facebook called it a “Zombie Apocalypse Assault Vehicle and Troop Transport” with “convenient gun ports so no zombie juice touches you during a mass zombie take down,” the Morning News reported.
Bomb squads have been sent to the suspect’s last known address in Mesquite and to the local TV station WFAA after a suspect called in with “a disguised voice” claiming to have a bomb, Brown said.
Brown initially said police believed there were as many as four suspects based on witness accounts, but later said he was likely acting alone.
No one is in custody.
Dallas police are working with the FBI, ATF and several other local agencies to handle the situation.
Gov. Greg Abbott also called police to offer any assistance.
The headquarters has transitioned into a crime scene, and the investigation has led to a “very chilling moment” realizing how close to death the officers were, Brown said.
“It raises the hair on the back of your neck pretty quickly when you think what could have happened,” Brown said.
Evacuated residents from the surrounding area were allowed back into their homes, the Red Cross said.
The headquarters is located in a bustling area filled with nightclubs and restaurants, so civilians easily could have gotten hit in the crosshairs, Brown said.
Rail and bus service in the city resumed by 10 a.m., and the highway has been shut down.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
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