Micah Xavier Johnson

Micah Xavier Johnson (July 2, 1991 – July 8, 2016) was an American Army reserve Afghan war veteran, black nationalist, and mass murderer who perpetrated the 2016 shooting of Dallas police officers during a Black Lives Matter protest. He ambushed and killed five officers and wounded eleven others in Downtown, Dallas, Texas. He was killed by police during a standoff after expressing anger over police killings of black men. The shootings were the second-deadliest targeted attack on law enforcement officers in U.S. history, surpassed only by the Young Brothers massacre of 1932, which killed six officers in Missouri.

Early life Micah Xavier Johnson was born in Magee, Mississippi, on July 2, 1991, and he was raised in Mesquite, Texas. He once described his childhood as "stressful" during a VA visit on August 15, 2014, but further details were redacted on the visit report. When he was four, his parents divorced. Johnson transferred into John Horn High School when he was 17 and participated in its Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps program, according to the Mesquite Independent School District. He struggled academically, graduating in 2009 with a 1.98 grade-point average and a ranking of 430 out of 453 students in his class. In the spring of 2011, he enrolled in four classes at Richland College but never completed any of them. Investigators believed that Johnson had access to El Centro College through his enrollment at Richland, citing his pre-planned and coordinated movements throughout Building B.

Military service Immediately after high school, Johnson enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserve and served from March 2009 to April 2015 as a 12W carpentry and masonry specialist. He completed basic training, which required qualification on handling of an M16 rifle or M4 carbine, basic rifles for U.S. military personnel. According to Justin Garner, a high-school friend and classmate who later served alongside Johnson in the same unit, Johnson lacked proficiency in certain required technical skills, such as marksmanship. Johnson was activated at the rank of private first class in September 2013 in support of the War in Afghanistan, where he was deployed from November 2013 to July 2014 with the 420th Engineer Brigade. People who knew Johnson during his time in the Army described him as openly religious and often socializing with white soldiers. A squad leader, who trained Johnson in tactical maneuvers and protection in 2009 and 2010, described him as "klutzy", "goofy sometimes", and "a nice guy", but also quiet and unmotivated. Documents released by the Army on July 29 detailed early signs of disturbing behavior being exhibited by him, but specific details were redacted. They also said that while Johnson was sociable, he was generally described by soldiers as a loner who sometimes ate his lunch in a vehicle alone while the rest of his unit ate outside together.

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