BBC Online: Five Dallas police officers have been killed and six wounded by gunmen during protests against the shooting of black men by police, authorities say. Three people are in custody and one man who was in a stand-off with police shot himself dead, US media have reported. Gunfire broke out at around 20:45 local time on Thursday (01:45 GMT Friday) as demonstrators marched through the city. The protests were sparked by the deaths of Philando Castile in Minnesota and Alton Sterling in Louisiana. The Dallas attack marks the deadliest toll on US law enforcement officers since the 9/11 attacks in 2001. Dallas Police Chief David Brown said officers had surrounded a car park near El Centro College, where an armed man was firing off rounds with a rifle. He said the suspect had told negotiators that “the end is coming” and that he was going to attack more officers and had “bombs all over the place”. But US media say the man is now dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound and the stand-off is over, although the police have yet to confirm this. Police are continuing to sweep the downtown area. Chief Brown said that a woman who was in the vicinity of the suspect was now being questioned. Police also said officers had intercepted a car after a person threw a camouflaged bag into the back and sped off. Two occupants were being questioned. Chief Brown said the suspects were all believed to have been working together, using rifles to carry out attacks while the rally was taking place. He added: “We do not have a comfort level that we have all the suspects.” He had earlier said 11 officers were shot “ambush style” by sniper fire, killing three. Dallas police later tweeted that a fourth officer had died. The Dallas Police Association later confirmed a fifth had died. One of those killed was Brent Thompson, 43, a transport police officer with the Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART). He is the first DART officer to be killed in the line of duty. Amateur video footage showed one police officer approaching a gunman and taking cover behind a concrete pillar. The gunman shoots the officer at least twice, leaving him motionless, and then flees. One civilian, named by her family as Shetamia Taylor, was shot in the leg while protecting her children and is recovering in hospital. The police said it appeared that two snipers had fired from “elevated positions” during the protest rally. “We believe that these suspects were positioning themselves in a way to triangulate on these officers from two different perches… and planned to injure and kill as many law enforcement officers as they could,” Chief Brown said. The mayor of Dallas, Mike Rawlings, said it was a “heartbreaking moment for the city”. Officers lined up to salute their fallen comrades as ambulances arrived at Parkland hospital. One of the march’s organisers, Rev Jeff Hood, saw people scramble for cover as gunfire rang out. “I ran away from the shots trying to get people off the streets and I was grabbing myself to see if I was shot,” he told the Dallas Morning News.
