Performing ICE Director Todd Lyons known as the taking pictures Wednesday morning at a Dallas Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility, which killed one detainee and critically wounded two, his “worst nightmare.”
For Lyons, who beforehand labored in a Dallas ICE workplace, the taking pictures “actually hit residence.”
“Seeing the images in the present day, a few of the bullets had been in an workplace that I used to have there,” he mentioned on “Prime Story with Tom Llamas.” “It’s only a horrible feeling. Folks at all times ask me what’s the factor that retains me up at evening. It’s the protection of the women and men of ICE.”
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Three detainees had been shot when gunfire rang out round 6:40 a.m. Wednesday. One sufferer died on the scene, and the 2 others had been taken to a hospital with gunshot wounds, Dallas police mentioned. No ICE officers had been damage.
“My coronary heart goes out that detainee’s household. We’re charged with their safety, their custody. Nothing like that ought to occur,” Lyons mentioned.
The shooter, who a number of senior regulation enforcement officers briefed on the investigation recognized as Joshua Jahn, had fired from a close-by roof or an elevated place down into the sphere workplace’s sally port, ICE mentioned.
The shooter was discovered lifeless with a self-inflicted gunshot wound, ICE mentioned. A bullet discovered close to the shooter bore messages that had been “anti-ICE” in nature, the Dallas workplace of the FBI mentioned, calling the assault an act of “focused violence.”
Lyons mentioned he discovered the shooter fired bullets “indiscriminately,” hanging home windows and foyer doorways, and that the shooter fired upon the sally port, the place detainees are introduced in. The victims had been shot whereas they had been in autos, he mentioned.
“The detainees weren’t outdoors a automobile. The shooter was simply taking pictures at random autos inside. They had been nonetheless hit contained in the automobile,” Lyons mentioned. “There have been some courageous women and men on the bottom that went into these vans, had been pulling these detainees out whereas they’re beneath fireplace.”
He mentioned the taking pictures was significantly alarming as a result of it occurred within the morning commute hours, close to an interstate, flats and companies, which means extra folks may have been damage.
“This was a focused assault on ICE, however this actually may’ve damage anybody,” Lyons mentioned.
Lyons mentioned there was a rise in assaults “on ICE officers and brokers nationwide.”
“It’s unhealthy sufficient the women and men of ICE need to go on the market and put themselves in hurt’s manner, doing their regulation enforcement mission, however by no means pondering that in our personal facility, our personal location, we take sniper fireplace in a significant metropolis,” he mentioned.
His message to ICE brokers is: “I completely have their again.”
“My No. 1 mission is ensuring they go residence to their households each evening,” he mentioned.
