DALLAS—The man linked to a violent assault on Dallas police headquarters was accused two years earlier of choking his mother, then fleeing to an East Texas town where schools were locked down out of fear he would attack them as “soft targets,” according to accounts from police and family members.
Police said the suspect, who planted pipe bombs outside the headquarters and fired at officers early Saturday from his armored van, told them he was James Boulware. He was killed hours later by a police sniper, and the medical examiner still hadn’t officially confirmed the man’s identity on Sunday.
In interviews with The Associated Press, Boulware’s father recalled his son’s seething anger at police after losing custody of his child, and his brother recalled that the family’s attempts to get Boulware help were rebuffed.
“We had tried for two years,” his brother, Andrew Boulware, said Sunday. “I didn’t honestly think that he would ever go this far, but it was always in the back of my mind that it was a possibility.”
Authorities say it was miraculous no one else was injured in Saturday’s attack, in which the gunman sprayed the front of the building with gunfire just after midnight. After opening fire, the suspect drove the armored van into a squad car, still firing, then led police on a chase to a restaurant parking lot in the suburb of Hutchins. The police sniper shot him during the standoff, but it took several hours to confirm his death out of fear that he had loaded his van with more explosives.
Police on Sunday said they had put 14 officers involved in the incident on administrative leave pending an investigation.
Boulware was arrested for family violence in Dallas two years ago, in a case that was later dismissed. According to a Dallas police report, a witness says Boulware was in his mother’s house and “began talking rudely about religion, Jews, and Christians.” The report says Boulware then grabbed his mother by the neck for 2 to 3 seconds until a third person could pull him off. The two men fought until Boulware left the house.
The police report says he was then reported the same day to be in Paris, Texas, about 100 miles away, where he grabbed weapons and body armor and talked about “shooting up schools and churches.” Andrew Boulware and his father, Jim, confirmed the incident.
