Gunman was ‘planning major bomb attack’
THE Dallas gunman was plotting a major bomb attack, authorities said, urging calm after more than 200 people were arrested in a new night of protests over police violence against blacks.
Anger around the United States over the deaths of two black men at the hands of police in recent day – the stated reason for Micah Johnson’s deadly rampage targeting white officers – showed no signs of abating.
President Barack Obama cautioned protesting Americans against casting all police as racially biased.
Mr Obama has ordered flags at half-staff 67 times in response to tragedies, more than any other president before him, and may address that grim record when he speaks at an interfaith memorial service today.
Vice President Joe Biden will also attend, along with Mr Obama’s predecessor and former Texas governor George W Bush, who will deliver brief remarks, and his wife Laura.
The Dallas community’s “unity is reflective of who we are as Americans” during these trying times, said Mr Obama, who will meet privately with the families of the five fallen police officers and those wounded.
The past week’s violence has shocked a country seemingly inured to its epidemic of gun violence and injected new urgency into the national debate on race relations and how white police deal with black suspects.
People inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement – which arose in response to police using lethal force against unarmed blacks – took to the streets in Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco in largely peaceful protests on July 10. –
