Chief: Dallas Shooting Suspect Killed When Police Robot Detonated Bomb

Dallas police chief David Brown, left, and Dallas mayor Mike Rawlings, right, talk with the media during a news conference, Friday, July 8, 2016, in Dallas. Snipers opened fire on police officers in the heart of Dal... Dallas police chief David Brown, left, and Dallas mayor Mike Rawlings, right, talk with the media during a news conference, Friday, July 8, 2016, in Dallas. Snipers opened fire on police officers in the heart of Dallas Thursday night, during protests over two recent fatal police shootings of black men.(AP Photo/Eric Gay) MORE LESS
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In an extraordinary move, police in Dallas used a bomb and a robot to kill a suspect in the deadly Dallas shooting early Friday morning.

Faced with a suspect holed up at El Centro College in Dallas and several officers already dead, law enforcement turned to the unusual method of detonating a bomb.

Dallas Police Chief David Brown told reporters Friday morning that after hours-long negotiations broke down and officers exchanged gunfire with the suspect, police weren’t left with many options to disarm the shooter.

“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. Other options would have exposed the officers to grave danger,” Brown said.

He confirmed that the explosion was the cause of the suspect’s death, and that the suspect did not kill himself, contrary to earlier news reports.

The shooting in Dallas left five police officers dead, seven officers injured, and two civilians injured.

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  1. Good, one less waste of time trial needed.

  2. I wait for the “fog of war” to lift, to understand what happened here. And I hope we did not lose vital information with this suspect.

  3. Where the hell did the Police get a bomb?

  4. I would’ve accepted concern about additional loss of life among the police community, but if trials are a waste of time, you quite frankly live in the wrong country.

  5. I would assume (not very reliable, obviously) that the “bomb” was fashioned from some of the shaped charges and other components the bomb squad has for controlled detonation. Since it only killed the suspect and didn’t bring down the building, that would make more sense to me than a “bomb”

    But then, Philadephia police were pretty resourceful in acquiring a much greater explosive device on short notice. So anything’s possible I guess.

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