Four gunman have shot 11 police officers - killing at least five - and may have planted a bombs 'all over' downtown Dallas.
One of the police officers killed in the attack has been identified as 43-year-old Dart Officer Brent Thompson.
The shooters opened fire from 'elevated positions' in a coordinated attack, picking off officers 'ambush style' as they manned a protest over the deaths of two black men, police chief David Brown said.
Three of them are in custody but another is still engaged in a shootout with police. The remaining gunman, who is holed up in a parking garage, told officers bombs have been planted across Dallas and that 'the end is coming'.
‘We have in custody a female who was in the same area as the El Centro garage,' Brown said.
'The suspect that we are negotiating with has told our negotiators “the end is coming”, and he is going to hurt and kill more of us and that there are bombs all over the place in the garage and downtown.
‘We still don’t have complete comfort level that we have all the suspects.’
Officers found a suspicious package near where one of the gunmen was caught and a bomb squad are dealing with it.
A gruesome video shows a heroic policeman taking on one of gunmen, but being gunned down by the shooter before being shot again execution-style, from point-blank range.
Police said two people are being questioned after they were spotted speeding away from the scene of the shooting in a black Mercedes. An officer saw one of the pair hurriedly putting a camouflage bag in the back of the car before driving off 'at a high rate of speed'.
A fourth suspect named as Mark Hughes, who was pictured walking through Dallas with what appeared to be an assault rifle, has been released from custody after he turned himself into police when cops made a public appeal and his family said he was an innocent bystander.
Mr Hughes said he was released from police custody after a 30 minute interrogation. The shocked ‘bystander’ told KTVT: 'I can't believe it. The crazy thing about it was I was down here, I couldn't get to my vehicle because of the roadblock and at hindsight 20/20 I could easily have been shot.’
Mr Hughes was unaware that his face was being plastered over the internet as a suspect in the shooting.
The two snipers opened fire from 'elevated positions', picking off officers as they manned the demonstration in downtown Dallas on Thursday evening, police chief David Brown said.
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