Deadly shooting at Dallas ICE facility follows trend of sniper-type incidents: Experts

As a motive stays below investigation within the deadly sniper-type shooting at a Dallas Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) area workplace this week, regulation enforcement specialists stated the incident is a part of a daunting development of rifle-wielding shooters focusing on politicians, police and others from lengthy distances.

Since an alleged would-be murderer attempted to kill President Donald Trump throughout a July 2024 marketing campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, not less than seven sniper-type incidents have unfolded throughout the nation, together with the Sept. 10 taking pictures that claimed the lifetime of conservative political activist Charlie Kirk, in keeping with reporting by ABC Information.

Whereas such shootings have been a part of America’s historical past, together with the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. within the Sixties, regulation enforcement specialists informed ABC Information that they’ve by no means seen so many sniper-type incidents occurring in such a brief period of time.

“I consider that is the subsequent chapter, if you’ll, in our historical past of violence, particularly active-shooter-type conditions,” Jesse Hambrick, a retired Georgia deputy sheriff and counter-sniper skilled, informed ABC Information.

The most recent incident occurred on Wednesday morning when the 29-year-old suspect, recognized by federal authorities as Joshua Jahn of Fairview, Texas, opened fireplace on a Dallas ICE facility, killing a detainee and leaving two others critically wounded, officers stated. The victims had been shot in an uncovered sallyport on the facility, officers stated.

Jahn allegedly deliberate the assault for months and opened fireplace from the rooftop of a non-public workplace constructing overlooking the ICE facility, utilizing an 8mm bolt-action rifle he legally bought in August, Joe Rothrock, the FBI particular agent in command of the bureau’s Dallas workplace, stated at Thursday afternoon’s information convention.

Rothrock described the taking pictures as a “focused, ambush-style assault” and that the suspect engaged in a big, high-degree of pre-attack planning, together with researching the focused constructing and utilizing apps to trace the placement of ICE brokers.

Federal officers stated the suspect, a U.S. citizen who died by suicide, sprayed the size of the constructing with gunfire and left behind writings main investigators to consider he needed to shoot ICE brokers, not detainees, and trigger terror, federal officers stated.

“Hopefully it will give ICE brokers an actual terror, to assume, ‘is there a sniper with AP [armor-piercing] rounds on the roof?” the suspect allegedly wrote in a single handwritten be aware, in keeping with FBI Director Kash Patel.

Patel disclosed in a social media submit on Thursday that the suspect additionally performed a number of searches on ballistics and the ‘Charlie Kirk Shot Video’ earlier than finishing up the assault.

Just like the suspect within the Kirk taking pictures who engraved shell casings discovered on the scene with messages — together with “Hey fascist! CATCH! — authorities stated the suspect within the taking pictures on the Dallas ICE facility additionally wrote a message on not less than one bullet casing discovered on the crime scene that learn, “ANTI-ICE.”

Like a few of the different sniper shooters who’ve carried out latest assaults, the suspect appeared ready to die, Hambrick informed ABC Information.

“Here is the truth, very truthfully, if somebody has no worry of shedding their very own life, it makes them dang close to inconceivable to stop from taking any individual else’s life,” Hambrick stated.

The taking pictures on the ICE facility got here simply two weeks after a gunman perched atop a constructing at Utah Valley College in Orem, Utah, shot and killed Kirk because the 31-year-old co-founder of the conservative grass roots group Turning Level USA was talking to a big crowd at an out of doors occasion. The suspect, recognized as 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, was arrested and charged with capital homicide.

“The long-range risk is new, and I believe that is all stemming from Butler,” stated Don Mihalek, a former senior U.S. Secret Service Agent, referring to the July 2024 assault on Trump, which killed one rallygoer and injured two others earlier than the shooter, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Criminal, was fatally shot by a Secret Service counter sniper. “I believe the Butler incident is being copycatted in some ways by different individuals.”

Lower than a month after the assassination try on Trump, a sniper armed with an AR-15 rifle opened fire from an overpass alongside Kentucky’s Interstate 75 close to London, hitting a dozen automobiles and injuring eight individuals, authorities stated. The suspect, 32-year-old Joseph Sofa, a former member of the Military Reserve, was discovered useless from a self-inflicted gunshot wound following an 11-day manhunt, officers stated.

On Sept. 15, 2024, simply two months after the primary try on Trump’s life, a Secret Service agent foiled one other assassination try on the president at Trump’s golf course in West Palm Seashore, Florida. The agent noticed the barrel of a rifle protruding of the fence line and opened fireplace on the shooter, recognized as 59-year-old Ryan Wesley Routh, inflicting him to flee the world. Roth was convicted by a jury on Tuesday and faces a sentence of life in jail.

A number of of the latest sniper assaults have focused firefighters and regulation enforcement officers. On June 29, 2025, a 20-year-old suspect, recognized as Wess Roley, allegedly ambushed and killed two firefighters in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, after he set a fireplace they responded to, officers stated. Roley was later discovered useless from suicide, authorities stated.

On Aug. 7, a gunman recognized by authorities as 61-year-old Carmine Faino shot and wounded two Pennsylvania state troopers in Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, with a rifle he allegedly fired “from a place of tactical superiority” after calling 911 to report photographs fired close to a house he shared with a girlfriend he allegedly killed, officers stated. Faino was fatally shot by a particular emergency response staff, officers stated.

Three days after the Pennsylvania assault, a sniper opened fireplace on the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention campus in Atlanta, authorities stated. The suspect, 30-year-old Patrick White, who officers stated blamed the COVID-19 vaccine for making him sick and depressed, died by suicide.

Mihalek stated such sniper shootings current a “large problem” for regulation enforcement to stop, notably at a time when ambush assaults on regulation enforcement are dramatically rising.

In a report launched on Sept. 2, the Nationwide Fraternal Order of Police said that 229 officers have been shot within the line of responsibility so far in 2025, 31 fatally. In 2024, 342 officers had been shot within the line of responsibility, together with 50 who had been killed, up from 46 in 2023, in keeping with the report.

There have been not less than 50 ambush-style assaults on regulation enforcement this 12 months, leading to 66 officers being shot, 15 of them fatally, in keeping with the report. In all of 2024, there have been 61 ambush-style assaults on regulation enforcement officers nationwide, leading to 79 officers shot, 18 fatally, in keeping with the Nationwide Fraternal Order of Police.

Amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants within the nation, the Division of Homeland Safety stated in an announcement this week that ICE officers are dealing with a 1,000% enhance in assaults in opposition to them since January.

In an interview with ABC Information on Wednesday, Appearing ICE Director Todd Lyons stated safety protocols are being ramped up at ICE services throughout the nation.

“Clearly, the subsequent step for us is ensuring our officers are secure. That is my largest worry each evening, particularly with these will increase [in assaults], that everybody will get residence secure each evening. We have to verify our buildings and services are protected,” stated Lyons.

Hambrick informed ABC Information that within the present risk setting, regulation enforcement businesses nationwide must be reevaluating their safety ways, together with working with property homeowners of their communities to stop easy accessibility to rooftops.

“Regulation enforcement has to assume now, ‘After I stroll right into a setting the place I will be, I’ve acquired to lookup, and that is not pure,” Hambrick stated. “I’ve acquired to go searching 360 levels, and I must safe these roofs.”

Mihalek stated he believes using drones to scan the tops of buildings may change into routine and assist regulation enforcement businesses shield officers.

“Drones could change into normal process in a variety of these regulation enforcement operations, particularly for ICE,” Mihalek stated.