DALLAS -- Fourteen police officers who "engaged" with the gunman who opened fire at Dallas police headquarters have been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation.
Police said Sunday that the officers will be interviewed and offered counseling after the shooting early Saturday.
Meanwhile, the man linked to the violent assault 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 Sunday.
In interviews, Boulware's father recalled his son's 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.
No one else was injured in Saturday's attack.
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 said Boulware was in his mother's house and grabbed his mother by the neck for two to three seconds until a third person could pull him off.
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."
A Section on 06/15/2015