DALLAS -- The Army reservist who killed five Dallas police officers this month had kept an unauthorized grenade in his room on an Afghan base in 2014, along with underwear stolen from a female soldier and prescription medicine taken from another, according to a report by Army officials investigating a sexual harassment complaint against him.
Micah Johnson, 25, of Dallas was killed early July 8 after targeting officers during a rally against recent police shootings of black men. Carrying a rifle, Johnson took multiple positions at El Centro College as he attacked police and threatened to kill more before a bomb-carrying robot was deployed to kill him, authorities have said.
Johnson, a black man, told authorities during the attack that he wanted to gun down white officers, police have said.
The report released Friday includes new details about why Johnson was stripped of his weapons and removed from his base in May 2014. His parents have said he was never the same.
The Mississippi-born Johnson was in ROTC in high school and later joined the Army Reserve. But his military career ended soon after a female soldier reported four pairs of underwear missing while the two were at Camp Shank, an eastern Afghanistan base known as "Rocket City" because the Taliban targeted it many times.
According to the Army report, a soldier told investigators that Johnson had been "messing" with drawers in a vehicle transporting laundry. After other soldiers in Johnson's squad searched his room, they said they had found the missing underwear under his bed and that Johnson had grabbed them, fled and thrown them in a dumpster.
Johnson later told investigators that he had grabbed the underwear out of embarrassment. He also said a civilian woman had given the underwear to him.
But in the report, the female soldier in Johnson's squad identified the underwear as hers. The soldier told investigators that she had been friends with Johnson for five years -- ever since she had joined the unit -- but that she stopped any conversation that veered toward anything sexual. She said she had ended that friendship a month earlier and had stopped talking to Johnson.
After the Army moved Johnson to another base, soldiers cleaning up his room found the MK-19 grenade, as well as a .50-caliber round and prescription medicine belonging to someone else, the report said.
The Army has redacted the recommendations of the investigating officer who wrote the report.
The Army still has not said why Johnson was honorably discharged instead of a lesser discharge, as the lawyer who represented Johnson in the sexual harassment case has said he previously expected.
Hours after the report's release, several dozen people marching in Dallas on Friday paid tribute to the officers killed in the attack, while also protesting police violence against blacks. The demonstrators marched several blocks from a downtown Dallas park to El Centro College.
The march Friday was organized by the Next Generation Action Network, the same Dallas-based civil-rights group that held the July 7 protest where Johnson targeted police. The group is led by Dominique Alexander, a 27-year-old ordained Baptist preacher and convicted felon who had been criticized for holding Friday's protest so soon after the attack. In response, he said it was important "to show respect for what officers sacrificed" for the sake of free speech.
Dallas police helicopters circled overhead during Friday's march, and officers armed with rifles and wearing riot gear ordered protesters off the streets to the sidewalks. Unlike the July 7 protest, Friday's demonstration had no police escort.
AG in Baton Rouge
In Baton Rouge, another city mourning after an attack on police, Attorney General Loretta Lynch on Friday met with the family of a black man killed by police, and she promised that the Justice Department will help both police and the community in Louisiana's capital.
Lynch spent Friday meeting first with police officers and first responders before sitting down to hear from ministers, judges, activists and business leaders.
After that, she met with the children of Alton Sterling, the 37-year-old black man who was fatally shot July 5 during a scuffle with two white police officers. Lynch called her meeting with Sterling's family members a "condolence call."
Lynch met with 15-year-old Cameron Sterling, his mother, and three of Alton Sterling's other four children, said Ryan Julison, spokesman for attorney L. Chris Stewart, who represents Cameron Sterling.
Sterling's relatives were grateful that Lynch took the time to meet with them, Julison said. He said Cameron Sterling asked her "to please keep everyone safe, police officers and citizens alike."
Lynch praised the family for calling for "peace and calm" in the wake of Sterling's death, which sparked protests in Baton Rouge and across the nation.
The Justice Department is investigating Sterling's death.
At an afternoon news conference, Lynch said she did not discuss the investigation with Sterling's family. She said she would not provide any new details about the investigation and declined to comment about how long it might take to complete.
Lynch also declined to provide any new details about the investigation into Gavin Long, the gunman who targeted officers July 17. Baton Rouge police officers Matthew Gerald, 41, and Montrell Jackson, 32, and sheriff's deputy Brad Garafola, 45, were shot and killed outside a convenience store by Long, an Army veteran from Kansas City, Mo. Long, 29, also wounded three other officers before a SWAT officer fatally shot him.
Information for this article was contributed by Reese Dunklin, Nomaan Merchant, Frank Bajak, Emily Schmall, Cain Burdeau and Michael Kunzelman of The Associated Press; and by William Wan and Thomas Gibbons-Neff of The Washington Post.
A Section on 07/31/2016