Dallas police give the all clear after security scare

Dallas police officers searched for hours for a suspicious person in the parking garage at their headquater on Saturday. The search yielded no suspects or strange items, the department said.

Officers and police dogs searched the three-story facility for several hours. It was unclear who reported the suspicious person.

In a statement earlier on Saturday, the police said, "the Dallas Police Department received an anonymous threat against law enforcement across the city and have taken precautionary measures to tightened security."

An armoured  vehicle was moved close to the main headquater in central Dallas and heavily armed officers were seen nearby, according to the Associated Press news agency.

The police asked media to stop all live feeds around headquater, " for the safety of our officers," police said.

The shooting happened late on Thursday, five white police officers were shot dead by  a black men, Micah Xavier Johnson, during a protest rally.

The march was against the killing of two black men by police in Louisiana and Minnesota. Two deaths this week has led to nationwide protests.

Police said they used robot to killed suspect, after negotiations had failed and the gunman was still shooting at them, so police used C4 with a detonation cord mounted on a Remotec F-5 robot.

The explosive weighed about one pound, police said.

Authorities have said they believe Johnson was the sole gunman during the Black Lives Matter protests on Thursday in Dallas. What is unclear is whether the 25-year-old army veteran, whom some people described as a loner, conspired with others or how long he had planned an attack.

Johnson had no criminal record or known terror ties, a law enforcement official said. He served in the U.S. Army Reserve from March 2009 to April 2015, training as a carpentry and masonry specialist, according to Pentagon records. Johnson was deployed for about seven months in Afghanistan, from late 2013, and received an honorable dischange.

Bomb-making material, rifles and a combat journal were found in his home in the Dallas suburb of Mesquite.

Seven other officers were wounded in the ambush. Two civilians were also hurt, the Dallas mayor's office said.

Earlier on Saturday, President Barrack Obama said the U.S. was "not as divided as some have suggested" in the wake of the shootings involving African-Americans.

He said, Americans of "all races, all backgrounds", including many of those who were protesting, were outraged by the Dallas killings.

"There is sorrow, there is anger and there is confusion about next steps but there is unity in that, this is not how we want our communities to operate, this is not who we want to be as Americans," Obama said.

A number of gun attacks involving police officers and civilians have occurred in other parts of the U.S. in the aftermath of the deaths in Minnesota and Louisiana.

Leaders of the Black Lives Matter organization have condemned the Dallas Killings but say planned marches, including a "Weekend of Rage" in Philadelphia, will go ahead.



source:
BBC News & CNN