Federal officials said Thursday that the gunman who shot three detainees at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Dallas had been aiming for immigration agents, pointing to notes that they said he had left at his home that showed a hatred of the federal government and a desire to cause immigration agents “real terror.”
Nancy Larson, the acting U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Texas, said at a news conference in Dallas that the actions of the gunman were the “very definition of terrorism.”
The briefing appeared to try to resolve what had been a lingering question of a motive behind the shooting on Wednesday, in which no law enforcement officers were hurt but one detainee was killed and two others were injured. The gunman, identified by the authorities as Joshua Jahn, 29, killed himself.
Ms. Larson said that Mr. Jahn “very likely acted alone” and had left many notes, which investigators found while searching his home. One read, “‘Yes, it was just me.,’” and another referred to ICE agents as “people showing up to collect a dirty paycheck,” according to Ms. Larson.
Ms. Larson said that the notes indicated that he did not intend to harm or kill any detainees, saying that it was a “tragic irony” that detainees were struck. Officials on Thursday said the detainees who were shot had been restrained in a transport van and could not escape the gunfire, though Marcos Charles, who leads enforcement and removal operations for ICE, hailed the efforts of agents at ICE and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives for their actions to save other detainees.
The officials declined to identify the detainees who were struck in the shooting. One of the wounded who was hospitalized is a Mexican citizen, according to the government of Mexico.
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The post Attack on Dallas ICE Was ‘Very Definition of Terrorism,’ Prosecutor Says appeared first on New York Times.
