Man tied to Dallas police HQ had violent past

Associated Press

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 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 said Sunday they had put 14 officers involved in the incident on administrative leave pending an investigation.

Andrew Boulware accused authorities in Dallas of ignoring family members’ statements that James was mentally unstable.

“They diagnosed him as sane in 15 minutes,” Boulware said.

His mother, Jeannine Howard, said in a statement to local media that she considered her son “lost to mental health” long before his death.