Family reacts to Dallas shooting

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, 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 later by a police sniper, and the medical examiner still hadn’t officially confirmed his 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 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 said 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 van into a squad car, still firing, then led police on a chase to a restaurant parking lot in the suburb of Hutchins. The sniper shot him during the standoff.

Boulware was arrested for family violence in Dallas two years ago in a case that was later dismissed. According to a Dallas police report, Boulware grabbed his mother by the neck for 2 to 3 seconds until a third person could pull him off.

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

Boulware lost custody of his son, something that his father, Jim, said weighed on him deeply and caused him to distrust police.