Mark Hughes later told local TV that he didn’t know his face had been plastered on TV screens across the country.
“We received a phone call that my face was on there as a suspect, and immediately I flagged a police officer,” he said.
Indeed, he is seen in a video handing his weapon over to a police officer. The department later tweeted that he had turned himself in. Mark Hughes later told local media he was questioned by officers for about 30 minutes. They told him, he said, that they had video of him shooting.
“At the end of the day,” he said, “the system was trying to get me.”
He added: “I don’t know what to say. I can’t believe it.”
The local CBS affiliate in Dallas spoke to the Hughes brothers. The full interview is worth watching:
The Dallas Police Department has not yet released information about Hughes being freed or no longer being a suspect.
7:23 a.m.
Speaking in Warsaw, President Obama said the officers had been targeted. You can watch the president’s remarks here:
“We are horrified over these events, and that we stand united with the people and the police department as it deals with this tremendous tragedy,” Obama said. “We still don’t know all the facts. What we do know is that there has been a vicious, calculated, and despicable attack on law enforcement.”
Updated at 5:28 a.m.
A fifth Dallas police officer has died:
DART identified its slain officers as Brent Thompson, 43, who joined the transit agency’s police department in 2009. He’s the first DART officer killed in the line of duty. The transit police department identified the injured officers as Omar Cannon, Misty McBride, and Jesus Retana.
President Obama, speaking in Warsaw, Poland, called the attacks “vicious, calculated, and despicable.”
Updated at 1:59 a.m. on July 8
Two gunmen shot eleven police officers in Dallas, Texas, during a protest on Thursday night, killing at least four of them, police said. The death toll makes this one of the deadliest days for police in the history of American law enforcement.
At a late night press conference, Dallas Police Department Chief David Brown said a male suspect is “cornered” and exchanging gunfire with SWAT officers in a downtown parking garage. The suspect told officers “the end is near” and claimed he had placed bombs throughout the building and the downtown area, Brown said.
A female suspect is also in custody, Brown added, although he did not identify her as a shooter. Police officials also said two suspects were taken into custody on a nearby highway. It’s unclear whether there are other suspects still at large.
No motive has yet been established and it’s unclear whether the shooting was related to the protest.
“Tonight it appears that two snipers shot ten police officers from elevated positions during the protest/rally,” Brown said in an initial statement. “Three officers are deceased, two are in surgery, and three are in critical condition. An intensive search for suspect is currently underway.” The police department later said an eleventh officer had also been injured and a fourth officer had been killed.