Snipers kill 5 Dallas cops; suspect dead

LATEST: A suspect in the Dallas shooting that killed five police officers has died after a tense standoff with police in a downtown garage, US media reported, citing law enforcement sources.
CNN cited a police source as saying that the suspect was killed, though some local media outlets said the suspect had shot himself.

Dallas Police Major Max Geron said officers were conducting "extensive" sweeps across the downtown area of the usually bustling Texas city. The area was on lockdown, with no bus or rail service and flight restrictions.

Suspect warns of 'bombs all over'

Dallas police were in a standoff with a suspect on Friday after snipers killed five officers and wounded six, one of the worst mass police shootings in U.S. history, during protests against the killing of two black men by police this week.

Police had taken three people into custody after the ambush shooting on Thursday night that police described as carefully planned and executed. Police were in a standoff that has extended into Friday morning with another suspect in a downtown garage, where gunfire had been exchanged, officials said.

White House officials have spoken with Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings about the shooting that turned the downtown of one of the largest U.S. cities into a sprawling crime scene and unfolded along streets that house major corporations, restaurants and courthouses.

President Barack Obama, visiting Poland, has been briefed, a spokesman said.

No specific motive has been given for the sniper attacks 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.

EARLIER REPORT:

Police said one suspect they had engaged in a shootout had been arrested, and a bomb squad unit was investigating a suspicious package found near the suspect's location.

A second "person of interest" had turned himself in, they said, although there was no word on the arrest of the second sniper. Brown also said no motive for the shooting had been uncovered yet.

"Our worst nightmare has happened," Mike Rawlings, mayor of the Texas city, told a news conference.

"It is a heartbreaking morning to lose these four officers who served our citizens," he said.

Television footage showed a heavy police presence, with officers taking cover behind vehicles on the street.

Separately, police said they were questioning occupants of a Mercedes they had pulled over after the vehicle sped off down a downtown street with a man who threw a camouflaged bag inside the back of the car.

Police said three other people in custody, two from inside the Mercedes and another woman detained near a downtown garage.

The US Federal Aviation Administration issued a temporary flight restriction over downtown Dallas after the shooting. Facebook also activated safety checks for its users.

The shooting happened as otherwise mainly 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.

Castile's death occurred within a day of the shooting of Alton Sterling, 37, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Sterling was killed during an altercation with two white police officers. Graphic video of that incident caused an outcry on social media.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with the Dallas law enforcement community and the Dallas Area Rapid Transit officers killed and injured this evening," Governor Greg Abbott said in a statement.

New York Arrests

In Chicago, protesters shut down a stretch of the Dan Ryan Expressway - one of Chicago's main arteries - for about 10 minutes on Thursday.

In New York, several hundred protesters blocked traffic in Times Square in the heart of Manhattan, chanting "Hands up, don't shoot." More than a dozen arrests were made, the New York Police Department said.

In St. Paul, about a thousand people gathered outside the governor's mansion, chanting "Hey hey, ho ho, those killer cops have got to go," and other slogans.

Pics: AFP

Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton made a brief appearance in an attempt to quell the crowd. He said earlier a state investigation was already under way.

"Would this have happened if the driver and the passengers were white? I don't think it would have," Dayton told reporters, speaking of the Castile shooting.

"So I'm forced to confront that this kind of racism exists, and it's incumbent upon all of us to vow and ensure that it doesn't happen and doesn't continue to happen," he said.

State investigators later identified Minneapolis area police officer Jeronimo Yanez as the patrolman who fatally shot Castile during a traffic stop.

Racial Disparities

US President Barack Obama described the killings as tragedies.

"All of us as Americans should be troubled by these shootings, because these are not isolated incidents. They're symptomatic of a broader set of racial disparities that exist in our criminal justice system," he said after arriving in Poland for a Nato summit.

The use of force by police against African-Americans in cities from Ferguson, Missouri, to Baltimore and New York has sparked periodic and sometimes violent protests in the past two years and has spawned the Black Lives Matter movement.

Anger has intensified when the officers involved in such incidents have been acquitted in trials or not charged at all.

"I was already fuming when I woke up this morning over Baton Rouge, but for it to happen here again just pushed me right over the edge," said truck driver Thomas Michaels, 42, who was among the protesters in St. Paul.

"We live in a racist society where black lives don't matter, my kids lives don't matter and I'm sick of it. I don't even know if it can be fixed," he said.

Another protester, retail worker Tanya McDonald, 28, said: "What gets me is how many people are failing to see that this is happening almost every day. We're dying, we're being killed off by people hiding behind a badge and no one's doing anything to stop it."

The Washington Post said Castile was at least the 506th person and 123rd black American shot and killed by police so far in 2016, according to a database it has set up to track such deaths.

In Texas, a man attacked the headquarters of the Dallas Police Department last June with gunfire and explosives before being shot dead in a standoff with police snipers.

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