The gunman who killed five police officers and wounded seven more in Dallas, Texas, and then was himself killed by a robot bomb, has been identified as Micah Xavier Johnson, 25. Multiple news sources have noted that Johnson honed tactics at a local self-defense academy with an unusual curriculum that includes “shooting on the move.” This is a maneuver in which an attacker fires, changes positions, and fires again, precisely the tactic that Johnson employed in his cowardly, evil attack.
The academy website refers to a TAP (Tactical Applications Program) course.
“Reality is highly dynamic, you will be drawing your firearm, moving, shooting on the move, fixing malfunctions, etc. all under high levels of stress,” reads the breathless text. “Most people never get to train these skills as they are not typically allowed on the static gun range.”
Johnson, an Army veteran could also have learned the tactic while in the service, or from books or other instructional materials. Johnson was a private first class, with a specialty in carpentry and masonry, who served in the Army Reserve from 2009 to 2015; he did a tour in Afghanistan from November 2013 to July 2014.
Justin J. Everman, founder and head instructor at the Academy of Combative Warrior Arts in Richardson, Texas confirmed that Johnson was his student approximately two years ago. This is around the time when police say Johnson began building an arsenal of firearms, ammunition, and the components of explosive devices, as well as a journal of combat tactics.
Everman declined to say which courses Johnson took.
“I don’t know anything about Micah,” he told the AP on Saturday. “I’m sorry. He’s gone. He’s old to us. I have thousands of people.”
Johnson’s Facebook page has since been taken down, but conversation with Everman from August of 2014 were saved, and indicate Everman knew Johnson was out of the country. The killer was deployed to Afghanistan around that time.
“Let me know when you make it down this way,” wrote Everman. “Will be great to get you back in the academy.”
“I concur!” Johnson replied.
A look over Everman’s Academy of Combative Warrior Arts website contains a number of red flags not for dangerous training, but for dork. The site is extremely short on specifics about the instructor’s background, noting that he studied Ninjitsu in high school, and then worked out with buddies in an empty room in college. This is the sort of information that real martial artists recount with chagrin when speaking about their early days. There is however an unfortunate sector of the martial arts community that casts youthful goofiness in a hallowed glow, and then never move on. These sites invariably refer to various names or disciplines they have “studied” when in fact they went to a seminar. And the sites invariably slight “mere” sport applications of martial arts, in favor of the more “realistic” rigors of the streets. The truth is though, these goofs have never encountered the reality of a fight on the street their lives, even once.
The techniques can be readily identifiable as ones that work on complaint partners only, and have things like pinching that makes sense with a complaint partner, but are ludicrous in an adrenalized situation. Mysterious flurries of hand strikes abound.
And lastly, the dorks have an acronym for everything.
The level of technique demonstrated below speaks for itself.
If you want realistic combatives, look to efforts like the Modern Army Combatives Program, not to dorks with a mysterious lineage and a virgin nose, who are too “deadly” for mere sport, who turn normal things into an acronym, and yell a lot.
Never the less, Everman’s academy is currently being excoriated on Facebook.
“Thank you for assisting the shooter with killing the five Dallas police officers,” wrote NMMason. “You trained him well. Good job! You should be proud of your ‘academy’. Yeah.”
Another comment was even more scathing.
“You trained the danger everyone else ran away from,” wrote Jon Neukam. “Please leave my neighborhood. Please.”
In a macabre addition to the story, Dallas Police Chief David Brown reported on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday that Johnson wrote the letters “RB” in blood. Investigators are trying to determine the meaning of the letters.
President Barack Obama correctly noted that Johnson is a “demented individual” who no more represents African Americans than does Dylann Roof, the caucasian on trial for murdering African Americans at a church in South Carolina, represent caucasians.
“So we cannot let the actions of a few define all of us,” said the President.
