Suspect in Dallas shooting sought to terrorise ICE agents, officials say

DALLAS, Texas – The sniper who

opened fire on an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) field office

in Dallas left behind notes saying he acted alone in an attack intended to kill and “terrorise” its agents, whose work he viewed as “human trafficking”, officials said on Sept 25.

Although one person held in ICE custody was killed and two other detainees were critically wounded in the bloodshed on Sept 24, it seemed clear from the gunman’s writings “he did not intend to kill detainees or harm them”, Ms Nancy Larson, acting US attorney for the Northern District of Texas, said at a news conference.

No government personnel were injured in the incident, though officials said ICE agents and other federal officers rushed into harm’s way to save some detainees sitting helpless in transport vans while shots were being fired.

The perpetrator was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot on the rooftop of a nearby building from which he fired on the ICE building and transport vans parked in its entryway with a bolt-action rifle, officials said.

The weapon was legally purchased by the gunman in August, according to authorities.

The suspect was identified on Sept 24 as Joshua Jahn, 29, a Dallas-area resident who attended a community college and worked as a solar panel installer. He climbed to his rooftop sniper’s perch using a ladder carried to the scene atop his car, Ms Larson noted.

His writings were discovered during a search of his home in Fairview, Texas, she added.

“Yes, it was just me and my brain,” she quoted one of his notes as saying, adding the messages showed a “game plan” for the attack.

“He hoped his actions would terrorise ICE employees and interfere with their work, which he called human trafficking,” the prosecutor said. “What he did is the very definition of terrorism.”

Mr Joseph Rothrock, special agent in charge of the FBI field office in Dallas, said all indications were that the shooter “committed this act alone”.

“His handwritten notes show he did not expect to survive this event,” he added.

President Donald Trump and others in his administration said the incident proves an increase in vitriolic rhetoric directed against ICE, the primary enforcement agency of his aggressive immigration crackdown, is putting law enforcement at greater risk.

They also cast blame on the availability of apps capable of tracking the location of ICE agents.

“It’s no different than giving a hitman the location of their intended target, and this is exactly what we saw happen in Dallas yesterday,” Mr Marcos Charles, an ICE executive associate director, said at the briefing on Sept 25.

According to FBI officials, Jahn used ICE-tracking apps and downloaded a list of local US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) facilities in preparation for the pre-dawn attack.

He researched video of conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s highly publicised assassination, FBI director Kash Patel said on social media on Sept 25. The investigation thus far, Mr Patel added, “indicates a high degree of pre-attack planning”.

One of the first glimmers of the gunman’s motives to be made public was a photo the FBI released within hours of the shooting of an unused bullet found inscribed with the phrase “ANTI-ICE”.

The attack was the third shooting in 2025 in Texas at a DHS facility. A police officer was shot in July at a detention centre in Prairieland, and a Michigan man was shot dead by agents after opening fire on a US Border Patrol station in McAllen in July.

ICE officers nationwide have been subjected to a 1,000 per cent increase in assaults stoked by “violent rhetoric”, Mr Charles said, “and it has to stop”.

The latest shooting came two weeks after Mr Kirk, co-founder of the conservative student political group Turning Point USA and a close ally of Mr Trump,

was shot dead by a rooftop sniper during a speaking event in Utah

, fuelling fears of a new wave of violence in the US.

On his Truth Social platform, Mr Trump accused “Radical Left Democrats” of stoking anti-ICE violence by “constantly demonising Law Enforcement, calling for ICE to be demolished, and comparing ICE Officers to Nazis”.

On Sept 25, he signed a presidential memo seeking to crack down on what he has characterised as organised efforts by left-wing groups to commit or incite political violence.

In the case of Jahn and the Sept 25 shooting, investigators have found “no evidence of membership in any specific group or entity”, Ms Larson said.

Reuters reported in August that some ICE officers worried about safety as the Trump administration pushed the agency to dramatically increase arrests.

DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said on Sept 25 that ICE would increase security at facilities across the country.

The administration has defended the work of ICE agents and Border Patrol officers, saying they have been courageous in carrying out their duty to enforce the nation’s immigration laws and keep Americans safe.

Democratic politicians and other critics of Mr Trump’s immigration crackdown have accused ICE of creating a climate of fear in heavily Latino communities by deploying militarised patrols of masked agents who emerge from unmarked vehicles to seize people without arrest warrants from day-labour sites, car washes, street vending locations and even schools.

While the administration has portrayed its immigration efforts as targeting criminal offenders, the number of people with no charges or convictions picked up by ICE has risen sharply since Mr Trump took office.

In a joint statement, Democratic leaders in the US House of Representatives condemned the Dallas attack and called for less divisiveness.

Political violence has risen in the US in recent years, with high-profile attacks targeting figures on both the right and the left, including Mr Trump who endured two assassination attempts during his 2024 presidential campaign. REUTERS