More than 200 people were arrested in chaotic scenes during a new night of protests over U.S. police violence towards blacks as authorities revealed on Sunday that the Dallas shooter had apparently been plotting a major bomb attack.
Anger around America over the deaths of two black men at the hands of police last week — the state reason for the black Dallas gunman’s deadly rampage targeting white officers — showed no signs of abating with a prominent Black Lives Matter activist among those arrested.
Most of the protests Saturday night into Sunday were peaceful. People inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement — which arose in recent years in response to repeated cases of police using lethal force against unarmed blacks — took to the streets in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. But authorities said a full-scale riot broke out in Saint Paul, Minnesota and resulted in 102 arrests.
In Baton Rouge, where one of the two killings occurred last week, more than 100 protesters were also arrested, local media reported citing police, among them the activist leader DeRay McKesson who live-streamed the incident.
New details about shooter
Chilling new details released about Dallas shooter Micah Johnson on Sunday fleshed out a still sketchy portrait of the 25-year-old war veteran who apparently supported black militant organisations. Police said the shooter had taunted police negotiators and scrawled on a wall in his own blood before he was ultimately killed in the standoff.
A search of Johnson’s Dallas-area home turned up bomb-making materials and a manual in which he wrote about military tactics.
Police now believe he had been planning something big long beforehand, and that the two black deaths last week were a trigger that prompted him to act, Dallas police chief David Brown told CNN on Sunday.
Investigators believe “based on evidence of bomb-making materials and a journal that the suspect had been practicing explosive detonations and that the materials were such that it was large enough to have devastating effects throughout our city and our north Texas area”, Mr. Brown said. “We’re convinced that this suspect had other plans,” he added.
The deaths in Minnesota and Louisiana “just sparked his delusion to fast-track his plans and [he] saw the protest in Dallas as an opportunity to begin wreaking havoc on our officers,” said Mr. Brown.
Also, the White House said on Sunday President Barack Obama will travel on Tuesday to Dallas where he will address an interfaith service in honour of the five officers.
@AFP, 2016
