The suspected killer of five police officers during a “Black Lives Matter” protest in Dallas on Thursday was reportedly sent home from Aghanistan for having sexually harrassed a woman.
Micah Xavier Johnson, 25, deployed with the US Army to Afghanistan in the fall of 2013. Six months into his Afghanistan deployment, Johnson was accused of sexual harassment by a female soldier, according to NBC News’s Dallas affiliate and the Associated Press.
After the accusation was made, the army sent Johnson back to the US.
The outlet’s source for the allegations was Bradford Glendening, a military lawyer who represented Johnson in the sexual harassment suit.
The court filing against Johnson reportedly says that the victim asked for a protective order to keep him away from her and her family, NBC reported.
From a parking garage overlooking Thursday’s demonstration in downtown Dallas, Johnson wounded seven people, in addition to killing the five policemen. He was armed with a semi-automatic AR-15 rifle, the same weapon that has been used in over a dozen mass shootings in the US in recent years.
Police have said Johnson had no criminal record, but that he was upset over recent police shootings of black men in Minnesota, Louisiana and elsewhere, and that he “wanted to kill white people, especially white officers,” as revenge.
Johnson was killed by a remote-controlled bomb robot late Thursday night, hours after the shooting, when negotiations with police failed.
-Hunter Stuart
