Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - He Went Insane and Started Shooting - The Micah Xavier Johnson Story

Episode Date: October 1, 2025

On July 7, 2016, Micah Xavier Johnson, a 25-year-old Army Reserve veteran, carried out a sniper attack during a protest in Dallas, Texas, resulting in the deaths of five police officers and injuries to nine others.

So this guy, he really, really don't like white people. Now the guy's name is Micah, and Micah is 25, and he's an army veteran living in Dallas. And Micah, he's an interesting guy. In fact, he's very sensitive about police being unnecessarily violent with his fellow black citizens. And one day in 2016, he hears the news about this guy, Alton Sterling. And Alton Sterling is a black man who was unalived outside a convenience store by white police officers because they allegedly thought he was reaching for a gun. And so Micah hears about this and he is super pissed. I mean, a lot of people are. And he feels like this shooting was unjust. Oh, but it

gets worse for him because the next day he hears more terrible news about this guy, Philando. And Philando, he was out driving with his girlfriend and his daughter one day. And then the police pull him over and the same thing. They unalive him because they allegedly thought he was reaching for a gun. And so Micah hears this news and he has had it with this nonsense. How can this keep happening? How can police just keep killing black citizens and then walking away like nothing happened? And this is when he just snaps. And he decides to get revenge for both Alton Sterling and Philando.

And he's going to do that by murdering as many white police officers as he can. And so he gets to work on this plan. He looks for a place where he can pull this off, somewhere with lots of police officers running around. Then he realizes there's going to be a local protest in Dallas about those recent shootings. And police will definitely be there to control the crowd. And so Micah grabs his assault rifle and a pistol and a bulletproof vest. And he heads over to the protest.

And then he gets there and he parks close to it and he steps out and he straps on his vest. And a protester passing by notices him and he thinks he's a cop. And he's like, good day, officer. and Micah's all pissed off. He's like, I ain't no fucking cop. Somebody's gonna die tonight. And I guess the protesters like, what the fuck? And so Micah, he sees a group of police officers, and he walks up, and he casually starts talking to them. And I guess he's like, hey guys, how are you doing today? We actually don't know what he specifically said to them. But suddenly, Micah brings out his rifle, and he starts shooting at them. And the officers are like,

oh shit, and they return fire immediately. And Micah runs for cover. And people, hear the gunfire and they start panicking and running for their lives and Micah, he tries to force his way into a nearby college by shooting at the glass doors. But a couple of officers are already inside and they see him and they start shooting at him. But Micah, he's determined to get inside that building. And so he turns around and he spots an officer in his path and he shoots him. Then he finds another entrance to the building and he shoots through the glass and he forces his way in. And here is if you want to see him. It's a shot of him on security camera. Now while all of this is going on, police, they're looking for him and bullets are flying everywhere. And at one point, one of those

bullets hit him. So now he's wounded, but he keeps moving. And so he runs up the stairs and he makes his way into the college's library. And there he finds a big window overlooking the street where a bunch of officers have gathered and it's an elevated position and the perfect angle. And so from that window, he starts shooting down at the officers on the street and blam one of them gets hit and blam another one gets hit and he shoots five cops total and two civilians also get wounded and around this time micah notices that the police are already in the building and they're looking for him and so he runs out of the library and he heads into an office that holds the school's computer servers and so he gets into the server room and he finds cover and he keeps firing at the police and the police

they can't just rush at him because, you know, they might get hit. And so now we're in a standoff. And Micah, he's not coming out. And police, they're not about to rush in there. I mean, he's got an automatic weapon, and he's already shown that he's not afraid to use it. Like, he's already shot a bunch of them. And so they call in negotiators.

And so now these negotiators are all trying to talk to him. But Micah, he's already not a fan of police officers. But he's especially not a fan of white police officers. So he's definitely not going to listen to these negotiators. So they send in a negotiator who's black. Now this new negotiator, he starts talking to him, and he's trying to be nice and he like introduces himself, and they actually got some body cam footage of all this.

Why you say you're going to die here anyway? So what does it matter, bro? I'm going to get this. I apologize. You said we're killing your black brothers, right? You know, I'm black? All I'm asking is that we resolve this situation, man. I want to hear your story.

Now, Micah, he doesn't believe that this negotiator is really black because he can't see him. And he tells him to prove that he's black by turning his weapon on the other officers and shooting them. Now, obviously, a negotiator, he's not going to do that. He's not going to shoot his coworkers. But he asks Micah, why are you really doing this? And Micah says, African liberation. And the negotiators like, Micah, if you put your weapon down, maybe we can get you a news channel to tell your story. Because he's thinking maybe Micah just wants to get his message out there. But Micah, he's still not cooperating.

He's like, nah. And he says that men like Martin Luther King and Malcolm X have been talking for decades and the time for talking is over and it's now time for revolution. And as the conversation continues, he doesn't seem like he's going to give up. And it's still too dangerous for police to rush in, but he does start getting honest with them. And he tells them that he's really upset over the killings of Outen Sterling and Philando and how all of that was handled. And that he's doing all this as a way to get revenge on the police. particularly the white ones. Now at this point he tells them that he wants everyone, including himself, to transition from this life to the next. So basically he's saying

he wants everyone in this situation to die, including himself. And so the back and forth conversation drags on for four hours and police still can't talk him into coming out. And during this time he says all kinds of crazy stuff. Of course he says he doesn't really like white people, especially ones who are police officers and that he wants to murder as many as he can. Then he rants on about a bunch of conspiracy theories. And the negotiator, he tries to talk him down and talk him into surrendering peacefully. But Micah, he doesn't want to hear any of that. He makes it very clear that he is not going to back down. And he's like taunting the officers, telling them to come down the hall. Come at him. And this is where police

really begin to weigh their options. If they rush in, he'll definitely shoot them and they could lose a few more officers. If they use tear gas, Micah might come out and shoot them and they could also lose a few more officers. And so it just doesn't seem like they're going to be able to negotiate their way out of this. I mean, they've already exchanged 200 rounds with this guy. He killed five officers, wounded nine other officers, and wounded two unarmed citizens. And so they decide there's only one thing left to do. They got to take him out with a bomb robot, which is one of the those little robots, you've probably seen them in movies, they kind of look like this. Now, normally these little robots, they're used to diffuse bombs. But police are thinking in this

case, they're going to stick a bomb on one of them and have it drive into the room that Micah's hiding in and just blow him up. Now, they've never done anything like this before. In fact, no police force in the country has ever done anything like this before, but they're going to try. And so police, they load explosives onto the robot and they drive it with the remote control over to where Micah is. And before Micah can react, kaboom! The bomb explodes and it unalives him.