The parents of the sniper authorities believe killed five police officers at a Black Lives Matter protest Thursday night spoke out about their son.
In an interview with The Blaze, the mother and father of 25-year-old army veteran Micah Xavier Johnson said their son changed when he returned home from the military.
“The military was not what Micah thought it would be,” his mother, Delphine Johnson, said. “He was very disappointed, very disappointed, but it may be that the ideal that he thought of our government, of what he thought the military represented, it just didn’t live up to his expectations.”
Parents of Dallas Cop shooter, Micah Xavier Johnson, speak out for the first time. https://t.co/oc3DPyMaGS
— Carol Costello (@CarolCNN) July 11, 2016
According to his parents, the shooter transformed from an extrovert into a “hermit” during his six years in the army, which included a stint in Afghanistan.
With tears streaming down his face, the shooter’s father, James Johnson, said, “I don’t know what to say to anybody to make anything better. I didn’t see it coming.”
He continued, “I love my son with all my heart, I hate what he did.”
Johnson was identified as the gunman in a press release from the Dallas police.
Micah Xavier Johnson: 5 Questions About the Alleged Dallas Sniper
http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2016/07/micah-xavier-johnson-5-question-dallas-sniper/
If police and media reports are to be believed, Micah Xavier Johnson is a killer.
Not only is he a killer, but he is the archnemesis of all that is good in the world because he planned an intricate plot to murder Dallas police officers in retaliation for the white supremacist police state’s systemic slaughter of black and brown bodies. The most recent, high-profile examples of this are the killings of Alton Sterling, 37, in Baton Rouge, La., and Philando Castile, 32, in Falcon Heights, Minn., which have sparked protests all over the country.
But what do we really know about Johnson? Nothing. We know nothing other than the narrative the Dallas Police Department, in concert with the FBI, has fed us.
The scant details:
•He was an Army veteran who served a tour in Afghanistan.
•He was honorably discharged, even with a sexual assault allegation against him.
•The alleged victim in the sexual assault case was allegedly more concerned about his mental health** than his receiving punishment.
•He allegedly had little contact with family but lived with his mother.
•There allegedly was evidence that he was making bombs in his home, which, allegedly, matches statements he is said to have made about having placed bombs all over Dallas.
•Oh, and, of course, just before a police robot attached with a C4-detonation device was used to blow him up, he allegedly wrote a mysterious note in his own blood—“R B”—and managed to inform police that he hated white people, particularly white police officers.
So, for a second, let’s suspend disbelief and entertain the possibility that a 25-year-old reclusive Army veteran, who is also a dashiki-wearing black power activist, is the lone sniper responsible for the deaths of more law-enforcement officers since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the United States.
I have no doubt that a black man living at the intersections of racism and American militarism, having to contend with pledging not only allegiance but also his life to a country that has a target on his back and those who look like him, could experience trauma. There have been several studies that link systemic and institutionalized racism with post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms. How it must feel for black veterans to risk their lives for a country that hates them for their freedom—while sending them to take the freedoms (and lives) of others on its behalf.
This is speculation, of course. I won’t presume to know Johnson’s mental state—and he was incinerated by a police bomb without benefit of a trial, so we will never know. Dead men tell no tales. Still, before we throw this alleged sniper out with the trash, let’s consider a few questions:
1. Why Didn’t Police Buy Him a Hamburger?
After Dylann Roof, an open white supremacist who plotted to intensify an American race war, was welcomed into Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., with open arms, he prayed with parishioners before, authorities charge, he opened fire on them, killing nine. He was eventually captured, and police officers promptly gave him a bulletproof vest—you know, in case any big, scary black people wanted revenge—and took him to Burger King because he was hungry.
Johnson, however, didn’t “have it his way”; instead, he was blown up with the violent use of remote force.
2. A Robot Bomb, Though?
“We saw no other option but to use our bomb robot and place a device on its extension for it to detonate where the suspect was,” Dallas Police Chief David Brown said during a news conference. “Other options would have exposed our officers to grave danger. The suspect is deceased as a result of detonating the bomb.”
This is the first time that the use of robots in such a way by law enforcement has been made public. There is no evidence, no proof of his statements. There will be no trial. The murky legalities of this, not to mention the potential civil liberties violations, may or may not play a larger role in future conversations, adding another level of debate surrounding the overmilitarization of police in the U.S.
3. Where Did the “Triangulating” Snipers Go?
First, authorities said there was a squad of snipers “triangulating” around the police and there were several suspects in custody. The bullets were coming from everywhere, they said; there was no escaping them. Now, the suspects, including the mysterious “light-skinned African-American woman,” have all vanished, and we are to believe that Micah Johnson, injured enough to scrawl a secret message in his own blood, coordinated and carried out a vicious, racially motivated attack against the Dallas Police Department all on his own.
More at the link above
https://twitter.com/ATLBlackStar/status/753503112154013696
Micah Xavier Johnson: Made in America, a Failed Human Rights State
http://www.blackagendareport.com/us_failed_human_rights_state
“Johnson’s violent actions articulated the rage of millions of oppressed people wholly who are tired of being killed, jailed, poisoned and blamed for their plight created by an indifferent elite.”
As America and the World sit aghast at the orgy of violence in Dallas, Baton Rouge, and Falcon Heights, the most troubling subject is how to understand veteran soldier Micah Xavier Johnson, who shot 11 policemen, killing five of them. Law enforcement dealt with him much like America deals with any problem: with a bomb. As a society, America can embrace Black men as the perennial victims of fascist white police, because only powerless African Americans feel the losses. However, when a Black man violates the taboo of using violence against whites to express rage or hatred, he pushes a psychic panic button where white fear and (often feigned) Black empathy conflate. Many clamor to denounce Johnson as a crazed lone gunman, but others, holding a minority opinion, view his acts as a necessary evil to shake-up and sober-up White America and their compromised, quisling Black leaders. Johnson’s violent actions articulated the rage of millions of oppressed people wholly who are tired of being killed, jailed, poisoned and blamed for their plight created by an indifferent elite.
Exactly 50 years ago the cries for Black Power shook the middle class Black reformist leadership and frightened a hostile and callous white America. A young generation hardened by two years of riots and tired of oppression demanded that Black people to control their fate. The following year urban rebellions set Detroit and Newark to the torch and scores were killed and thousands were arrested. A shocked and angered President Lyndon Johnson commissioned the Kerner Report to study the causes of large-scale urban rebellions that had rocked hundreds of America’s inner cities. Johnson, disgusted by what he had been told about the report’s findings, never read the document. The Kerner Report’s most famous quote stated, “Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white – separate and unequal.” Decades later there are at least two Americas, still unequal, and the problems are more acute than ever. This is in large part because Johnson and all his presidential successors have treated Black people as a crime problem instead of citizens, heaping new and more repressive laws and policies to enforce America’s version of Apartheid.
“Perhaps the war that impacted him most is White America’s War against Black people.”
Micah Johnson was only 25 years old, and few media pundits or commentators on the nightly news are going to consider that he grew up in a society obsessed with war and killing. He was born the year the Desert Storm war against Iraq started, and he died amid the era of the War on Terror in which he served in Afghanistan. Perhaps the war that impacted him most is White America’s War against Black people, a conflicted manifested in the FBI’s Cointel-Pro, Johnson’s Safe Streets Act 1968, Nixon’s War on Drugs 1969, Reagan’s “Three Strikes Laws,” Bush’s “Weed and Seed,” and the Clinton’s infamous Omnibus Crime Act of 1994. These policies have resulted in the wholesale destruction of millions of lives, and those Blacks lucky enough to escape the talons of white man’s justice experience little solace. Many suffer hypertension and mental anxiety, hoping their diction, good manners, dress, and faith will protect them and their loved ones from arbitrary arrest or execution. Micah Johnson refused to live like a hunted animal. Unlike the majority of Blacks who complain amongst themselves, Johnson went postal – like white folks do all the time, for far less serious reasons. For one riveting moment last weak, white America felt fear of an overdue payback for centuries of crimes against the world. Tragically, the heroic real-time video shot by Diamond Reynolds and her daughter and the old speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., appealing to the delinquent humanity of white folks, does not reach the cold-hearted racists like a dose of violence directed at them.
If one took the time to consider that a trained veteran of the United States military turned his weapons on his own society, the question would by: Why? How many Blacks have to have their homes, children, neighborhood, or lives stolen without recourse before someone acts out his rage? How much Israeli-styled occupation policing and graphic videos of police murders is enough for a person to feel hatred for those that do these things? How many unfair tickets and fines and funeral tee shirts before someone losses his ability to accept subhuman treatment? And, why should anyone be forced to live this way? How does one escape police that kill law-abiding citizens?
“How many unfair tickets and fines and funeral tee shirts before someone losses his ability to accept subhuman treatment?”
Contrary to those who dislike this truth, Micah Johnson is a hero to grieving Black mothers, families and friends who had children slain by racist killer cops. Anyone, including myself, who has been humiliated and unfairly treated by a racist Black or White policeman feels that some of these bullies and killer cops warrant a comeuppance. As for the reactionary Greek chorus that sheds one-sided tears for police but scorns their victims, they are a lost cause. Their moment of revelation will come when this empire collapses and they become the new niggers for whatever power replaces this one.
Finally, the same militaristic USA that taught Johnson and millions of others to kill in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and the world over has long covered up the relationship between discharged servicemen and violence throughout the society. Why should Micah Johnson be portrayed as an anomaly? Neglected, sin-sick, mentally challenged, and guilty conscience-afflicted ex-killers for Uncle Sam—often homeless and disabled—are time bombs and a pathological inheritance to a society addicted to war. Furthermore, Micah is just a raindrop in the storm cloud of a new generation that came of age during the Great Recession with no prospects for the future. This cohort fears nothing and has little to live for, and their anger at being targeted for prison, addiction, senseless wars and early death represents a clear and present danger to the bigoted oligarchs in power.
Micah Johnson did us all a favor by showing us that America is a time bomb with bloody and dark days ahead.
https://twitter.com/dallasnews/status/753606248235405312
https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/753092200758702080
https://twitter.com/3ChicsPolitico/status/753081407635853312
I have to give credit to the Dallas Mayor. He kept it 💯 about race.
https://twitter.com/WORLDSTAR/status/751588785536716800
https://twitter.com/3ChicsPolitico/status/752903009990877184
https://twitter.com/trueblacknews/status/752854827470913537
Brian Williams; Dallas Hospital Presser; 7-11-2016
Powerful. God bless him.
Dr. Brian Williams has provided fertile soil and a seed for the tree of understanding to grow. The two officers at the press conference nurtured it with their support.
May it grow and provide the fruit of racial equality and social justice and community.
People are suffering, and it is getting worse. It’s good that this young man has spoken publicly about his own suffering and the impact that all of this killing is having on him personally. The light that is shining on this crisis gets larger every time a courageous person steps up to speak truth to power.
AMEN
They want to quell, stifle, and shut down our voices
NOT.GOING.TO.HAPPEN.
https://twitter.com/CNN/status/752692156079411200
This IS the DAY-TO-DAY REALITY for Dr. Brain Williams, TRAUMA SURGEON, and any other person of color regardless of what they wear, how educated they are, etc.
IT’S THAT BLACK SKIN. The unmitigated gall to wear that BLACK SKIN.
Feral #Savage Please watch how Baton Rouge Police are attacking protesters on private property. Very disturbing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rdcq2dtFoGs
Liza, would you do me a sweet favor? Please screenshot Granny’s poem and email it to me so I can give it to her to post on Twitter? Thank you so much.
Hi, SG2, I wasn’t logged on last night so I’m just now seeing this. I’ll do it now, I think it has to be in two parts.
Check email.
Done. Thank you.
Check again. Had to re-do page 2.
ok, thanks
This is a poem I wrote:
AM I AMERICAN
My eyes are not blue
My eyes are black
My hair is not blond
My hair is black
My skin is not white
My skin is black
Am I American?
If I am assertive
They say I’m belligerent
If I am persistent
They say I’m pushy
If I am confident
They say I’m aggressive
Am I American?
Birthed in America
Took my first baby steps
Not on foreign soil
But in America
Buried my ancestors here
Their blood stains from toil
Am I American?
I pledged allegiance to the flag
And sung patriotic songs
I baked and ate apple pie
Yet my black brothers were hung
My emotions suppressed
My black soldier man died
Am I American?
Fought for freedom
But confined to certain residents
Paid my citizen debts to Uncle Sam
I helped vote for Presidents
Yet, suffered disparity throughout life
But because I’m black
Intelligence they say I lack
Am I American?
What others think or say I am
I do not give a damn
I am who I am
An American
Written by
GrannyStandingforTruth
Wow! Very good Granny. I love this.
Granny….
tell those truths!!
I hope that black woman who was on @CNN (and every tv station you can shake a stick at) saying she’s never had a problem w/ the police realize cops won’t hesitate to gun down her young black boys in seconds like they did 12 year old Tamir Rice.
https://twitter.com/USATODAY/status/752506700842893312
America…….country where the unbalanced can LEGALLY purchase weapons of death..
BEST COUNTRY EVER!!!!
https://twitter.com/djfroschWSJ/status/752604739787845632?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
https://twitter.com/Kennymack1971/status/752580088621768704
you best believe that
Only docile, meek, black folks are expected to forgive, comfort and forget that they and their loved ones are being STARKED, HARASSED, TORMENTED, DENIED RIGHTS TO VOTE, WALK, BREATH & the pièces de résistance = KILLED!
The very day Diamond’s partner was shot and killed in COLD BLOOD by a cop, media were asking her if she forgave them.
IT’S MADDENING!
https://twitter.com/ATLBlackStar/status/752595432753270784
https://twitter.com/ChuckModi1/status/752634259047714816