DALLAS (AP) — The Latest on the shooting of police officers in Dallas (all times local):
10:25 a.m.
An attorney for a suburban Minneapolis police officer who killed a black motorist says the officer reacted to the man’s gun, not his race.
Minneapolis attorney Thomas Kelly told The Associated Press on Saturday that St. Anthony Police Officer Jeronimo Yanez was reacting to “the presence of that gun and the display of that gun” when he opened fire on Philando Castile.
Castile’s girlfriend, who streamed the shooting’s aftermath live on Facebook, says Castile was permitted to carry the gun.
Kelly says Yanez, who is Latino, is distraught and saddened over the Wednesday shooting in the Minneapolis suburb of Falcon Heights.
Authorities say that during the traffic stop, Yanez approached Castile’s car from the driver’s side and another officer approached from the passenger side. Yanez opened fire, striking Castile multiple times.
Kelly wouldn’t elaborate on what led up to the shooting, citing a pending investigation.
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7:45 a.m.
Texas authorities say two officers have shot and killed a gunman on Houston’s south side.
Houston Police Department officials say the shooting happened about 12:40 a.m. Saturday, when officers saw a man with a revolver standing in the road. Police say after officers asked the man to put down the gun, he instead pointed the revolver in the air, then at the officers. The officers then fired numerous times.
The unidentified man died at the scene.
Bystander Eric Puckett tells KTRK-TV the victim was a black male. The officers’ races were not immediately known.
KTRK says one of the unidentified officers is a 10-year veteran of the force, and the other is a 13-year veteran. The officers will be investigated by internal affairs, along with Harris County.
An investigation is ongoing.
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1:50 a.m.
A black Army veteran upset about fatal police shootings of black men and bent on exterminating white police officers killed five lawmen in a sniper attack that layered new anxiety onto a nation already divided about guns and how police treat African-Americans.
Micah Johnson, who donned a protective vest and used a military-style semi-automatic rifle, was killed by a robot-delivered bomb after the Thursday evening shootings, authorities said. It marked the deadliest day for U.S. law enforcement since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The Dallas sniper had been sent home from Afghanistan after being accused of sexually harassing a female, and was described as a loner who followed black militant groups on social media.
Johnson lived with family members in the blue-collar suburb of Mesquite, where he played basketball for hours at a time.
Friends there said the 25-year-old black man didn’t seem interested in politics, but his Facebook page suggests otherwise: He “liked” black militant groups including the African American Defense League and the New Black Panther Party, which was founded in Dallas.
In all, 12 officers were shot just a few blocks from where President John F. Kennedy was slain in 1963.
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11 p.m.
Philando Castile’s mother and two of his uncles are condemning a shooting in Dallas that left five police officers dead and wounded several more.
In an interview with CNN, Valerie Castile says her son would not have approved of the shootings “because he believed that all lives matter.”
Police say Dallas suspect Micah Johnson was upset about the fatal police shootings of Castile in Minnesota and Alton Sterling in Louisiana.
Tracy Castile says while the video of his nephew’s death is horrific, he is glad it came out. He says he and his family are looking for due process. He wants the officer involved to be “treated like any other criminal.”
State investigators identified the two officers as Jeronimo Yanez and Joseph Kauser. Both are on administrative leave.
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10:30 p.m.
A military lawyer says the man who fatally shot five officers in Dallas was accused of sexual harassment by a female solider when he served in the Army in Afghanistan in May 2014.
Lawyer Bradford Glendening says Micah Johnson was sent back to the U.S. with the recommendation he be removed from the Army with an “other than honorable” discharge.
Glendening, who represented Johnson at the time, said Friday that the recommendation was “highly unusual” since generally counseling is ordered before more drastic steps are taken.
Glendening said Johnson was set to be removed from the Army in September 2014 because of the incident. Instead, Johnson got an honorable discharge the following April — for reasons Gardening doesn’t understand.
