By Gus Contreras, KERA News for Audio Texas
DALLAS – The doors to El Centro College in downtown Dallas are finally opening up to faculty and staff this morning. Students will return to class tomorrow. Yesterday, KERA’s Gus Contreras got a look inside the community college building where a gunman holed up on July 7th, killing five police officers.
At about nine o’clock that night, Micah Johnson’s trail of terror began outside the college doors facing Lamar Street.
“His SUV was parked right outside these doors, this is where he initially engaged police. These are the first set of doors that he opened up on and this is the doorway where my two officers were injured.”
That’s El Centro Police Chief Joseph Hannigan. After trying to shoot out the doors facing Elm Street, Johnson headed up a staircase toward the library. There are still two bullet holes on the floor. A big chunk of the wall was taken by the FBI.
“As soon as my detective opened up the metal door to enter the stairwell, he was met with a round of gunfire. About 8 or 9 shots were fired at him as he backed out of the stairwell.”
Once inside the library, Johnson made his way to a hallway with a set of windows on the second floor.
“This is where he engaged police officers that were on Elm St. They were hiding behind their police cars and he was shooting at anybody that moved. You’ll also notice across the street the 7-11 is boarded up, he shot those windows out as well.”
After firing on officers, the shooter barricaded himself near a room with computer servers. This is where police negotiated with him for hours.
“They deployed the robot down this pathway to this corner, where the subject was barricaded and they deployed the explosives.”
The bomb killed Johnson. Now, all that’s left is broken sheetrock from the explosion, electrical wires hanging from above and hundreds of bullet holes.
Loading ...