DALLAS _ The gunman who killed five police officers and wounded nine other people in Dallas this week had been accused of "egregious" sexual harassment in the Army and spent years accumulating a stockpile of weapons, investigators and his military lawyer say.
The new details about Micah Xavier Johnson, 25, emerged Saturday as Dallas grieved over the nation's deadliest attack for law enforcement officers since Sept. 11, 2001. Johnson was killed by a police robot with a bomb after he ambushed officers at a demonstration Thursday in downtown Dallas protesting recent high-profile police shootings.
The city was quiet overnight and for much of the day Saturday, even as fresh protests flared elsewhere around the country over the way that deadly force is used.
In the afternoon, however, the Dallas police sent out an alert about an unspecified threat at the downtown police headquarters and ordered news media to cut their live feeds of officer movements.
About a dozen officers could be seen rushing into a police parking structure behind the headquarters, and half a dozen police cruisers and a SWAT vehicle arrived as reinforcements. Reporters were moved away from the scene, and police formed a perimeter around the complex.
A police spokesperson at the scene declined to give more information.
Investigators believe that Johnson had assembled an arsenal of bomb-making materials, five handguns and a semiautomatic SKS assault rifle within the last two years, according to a federal law enforcement official who was not authorized to speak publicly about the case. The first three handguns were purchased in September 2014, the officer said.
Officials have said that Johnson, who was black, kept a personal journal filled with combat tactics and wanted to kill white police officers following recent high-profile police shootings of black men.
President Barack Obama on Saturday called him a "demented individual" who did not represent the feelings of other Americans.
Investigators are digging into Johnson's military history and are seeking to corroborate reports that he was sent home from Afghanistan after a sexual harassment complaint was lodged against him in 2014, another federal law enforcement official said.
Bradford Glendening, the lawyer who represented Johnson, told The Associated Press that the military recommended an "other than honorable discharge," adding, "In his case, it was apparently so egregious, it was not just the act itself. ... I'm sure that this guy was the black sheep of his unit."
According to a court filing Glendening read to the AP, the victim said that she wanted Johnson to "receive mental help" and sought a protective order to keep him away from her and her family, wherever they went. Johnson was ordered to avoid all contact with her, Glendening said.
Johnson joined the Army Reserve in March 2009 and served in a unit based in Seagoville, Texas, for 4 { years. He deployed to Afghanistan with the 420th Engineer Brigade in 2013 and served eight months there as a carpentry and masonry specialist.
Investigators were still examining whether others might have been involved in Thursday's attack, said Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who stopped by a memorial outside the Dallas police headquarters Saturday.
"One of the things they're trying to make sure is there's no other conspiracies," Paxton said. "We know there is only one shooter but we're not sure if there were conspiracies involved."
Dozens of supporters placed bouquets, cards, candles and other tributes on two police cars parked in front of the building's entrance, one belonging to the department, the other from Dallas Area Rapid Transit.
DART Officer Brent Thompson, 43, who had worked for the department since 2009, was among those killed Thursday. He was the department's first officer to be killed in the line of duty.
The four Dallas police officers killed included Patrick Zamarripa, a 32-year-old father and Iraq war veteran who enlisted as a teenager just before the Sept. 11 attacks. He was identified on social media by family members.
The names of the other victims had not been officially released Saturday, but local media identified them as Senior Cpl. Lorne Ahrens, 48; Officer Michael Krol, 40; and Sgt. Michael J. Smith, 55.
Seven other officers were injured in the shooting, some of whom were still hospitalized Saturday.
DART Officers Omar Cannon, 44, and Misty McBride, 32, were still recovering but "doing well," said fellow Officer Terry Mack as he paid his respects at the DART police car.
Mack also knew and sometimes worked with the DART officer who was killed in the shooting, Thompson. He was quiet and determined, and was working to transfer to the department's motorcycle division, Mack said.
Charissa Williams, 41, drove overnight from Baton Rouge, La., to pay her respects. She placed balloons and flowers at the memorial. Although she supports aspects of the Black Lives Matter movement, Williams, who is black, said "not all officers are bad officers."
"I'm not against police officers, I'm against wrong," she said, including the recent police shootings of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge and Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, Minn.
She noted that the Dallas protest "was a peaceful march, and one individual just came in and turned it into a catastrophe."
Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings also stopped by the memorial before entering police headquarters Saturday. He urged the city to overcome its racial divisions.
"It's all about race," Rawlings said. "Let's get over it, build a bridge and get over it."
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