Dallas police HQ shooting: Suspect killed during standoff

                             

(CNN)A man unleashed a barrage of gunfire on Dallas' police headquarters and planted explosives outside the building early Saturday -- narrowly failing to wound anyone -- leading to a chase to a suburb that ended with SWAT officers killing him in his parked van at a restaurant parking lot.

Police shot him through the windshield of the van about an hour before dawn after he made more threats, sometime after they chased him to the lot outside the Jack in the Box restaurant in the suburb of Hutchins, authorities said. 

But police didn't confirm his death until the early afternoon, with police first using a robot to help disarm the vehicle after the suspect told them that the vehicle contained explosives.

"We believe this suspect meant to kill officers," Dallas Police Chief David Brown told reporters. "We barely survived the intentions of this suspect."

Before he was shot, the suspect ranted to police by phone, giving his name and alleging police were responsible for his child having been taken from him, but investigators haven't confirmed his identity, Brown said.

The attack began shortly after midnight, with the man firing an assault weapon and then a shotgun from the outside, riddling police cars and the windows of the headquarters, which sits across the street from a large apartment and office complex.

Officers, staffers and perhaps others narrowly avoided being shot. The chief said rounds hit not only an occupied squad car but also the police headquarters' front lobby, its information desk and the building's second floor. 

One lobby staffer had just risen from a desk to get a soda -- and bullet holes there suggest that the worker would have been shot otherwise, Brown said.

Bullets might have been whizzing near residents across the street, too. Rick Birt, who lives in the South Side on Lamar complex, was taking a phone video of the gunfire from his open apartment window.

"I heard snaps overhead, so I could tell that was rounds coming in our direction," Birt, a former Marine, told CNN.

Parts of the initial attack were caught on video by several people nearby, and the police chief said he believed the sounds indicated some of the gunfire came close to those making the recordings. But based on the suspect's calls to police, "we think he was specifically targeting police officers," Brown said.

The attacker also planted at least one set of pipe bombs in a bag outside, designed to "explode upon touch," Brown said.

Police returned fire and gave chase. Video recorded by a witness and aired on CNN shows the dark van ramming the nose of a police car before retreating in reverse.

Chase, another shootout, and standoff

After the shootout at police headquarters, the suspect called 911 and gave a four- to five-minute rant, accusing of police of being to blame for him losing custody of a child, Brown said. 

source: www.cnn.com