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) subject workplace this week, regulation enforcement specialists mentioned the incident is a part of a daunting pattern 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, a minimum of 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 response to 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 Nineteen Sixties, regulation enforcement specialists advised 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 following 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, advised ABC Information.

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

Jahn allegedly deliberate the assault for months and opened hearth from the rooftop of a personal workplace constructing overlooking the ICE facility, utilizing an 8mm bolt-action rifle he legally bought in August, Joe Rothrock, the FBI particular agent in control of the bureau’s Dallas workplace, mentioned 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 mentioned 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 mentioned.

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

Patel disclosed in a social media put up on Thursday that the suspect additionally carried out 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 mentioned the suspect within the taking pictures on the Dallas ICE facility additionally wrote a message on a minimum of one bullet casing discovered on the crime scene that learn, “ANTI-ICE.”

Like among the different sniper shooters who’ve carried out latest assaults, the suspect appeared ready to die, Hambrick advised ABC Information.

“Here is the truth, very truthfully, if somebody has no worry of dropping their very own life, it makes them dang close to not possible to forestall from taking anyone else’s life,” Hambrick mentioned.

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 chatting with a big crowd at an outside occasion. The suspect, recognized as 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, was arrested and charged with capital homicide.

“The long-range menace is new, and I feel that is all stemming from Butler,” mentioned 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 feel the Butler incident is being copycatted in some ways by different folks.”

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 folks, authorities mentioned. 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 mentioned.

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 hearth 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 mentioned. Roley was later discovered useless from suicide, authorities mentioned.

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 pictures fired close to a house he shared with a girlfriend he allegedly killed, officers mentioned. Faino was fatally shot by a particular emergency response workforce, officers mentioned.

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

Mihalek mentioned such sniper shootings current a “great problem” for regulation enforcement to forestall, significantly at a time when ambush assaults on regulation enforcement are dramatically growing.

In a report launched on Sept. 2, the Nationwide Fraternal Order of Police acknowledged that 229 officers have been shot within the line of responsibility to this point 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 response to the report.

There have been a minimum of 50 ambush-style assaults on regulation enforcement this yr, leading to 66 officers being shot, 15 of them fatally, in response to 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 response to the Nationwide Fraternal Order of Police.

Amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants within the nation, the Division of Homeland Safety mentioned in a press release this week that ICE officers are going through a 1,000% improve in assaults towards them since January.

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

“Clearly, the following step for us is ensuring our officers are protected. That is my largest worry each night time, particularly with these will increase [in assaults], that everybody will get dwelling protected each night time. We have to verify our buildings and amenities are protected,” mentioned Lyons.

Hambrick advised ABC Information that within the present menace atmosphere, regulation enforcement companies nationwide ought to be reevaluating their safety ways, together with working with property house owners of their communities to forestall quick access to rooftops.

“Legislation enforcement has to suppose now, ‘After I stroll right into a setting the place I’ll be, I’ve obtained to lookup, and that is not pure,” Hambrick mentioned. “I’ve obtained to go searching 360 levels, and I have to safe these roofs.”

Mihalek mentioned he believes using drones to scan the tops of buildings may grow to be routine and assist regulation enforcement companies shield officers.

“Drones could grow to be customary process in lots of these regulation enforcement operations, particularly for ICE,” Mihalek mentioned.