The FBI said Thursday that the gunman who opened fire at a Dallas Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility this week conducted extensive reconnaissance and downloaded federal facility documents in preparation for what investigators called a "high degree of planning."
FBI Director Kash Patel posted on X that 29-year-old suspect Joshua Jahn had accessed a document titled "Dallas County Office of Homeland Security & Emergency Management" that listed Department of Homeland Security sites, searched for ballistics information and watched videos of the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk days before the shooting. Patel said, "Further accumulated evidence to this point indicates a high degree of pre-attack planning."
The attack occurred early Wednesday when Jahn fired from a rooftop at an ICE transport van parked outside the facility, killing one detainee and wounding two others. Authorities said no ICE staff were hit. Jahn took his own life at the scene before law enforcement reached him.
Recovered shell casings carried messages "anti-ICE in nature," Patel said, including one engraved with "ANTI ICE." A handwritten note left behind by Jahn read: "Hopefully this will give ICE agents real terror, to think, 'is there a sniper with AP rounds on that roof?'"
Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson, a Democrat-turned-Republican, called the incident troubling. "It's really, really sad. I want to stay out of the way of the FBI investigation ... but I will tell you that it's very troubling," Johnson said in a CNN interview Thursday. "The division that seems to be leading to some folks taking these very, very unfortunate and violent steps to try to bring about policy changes [is] just wrong and it's scary."
The Department of Homeland Security said the shooting amounted to "an attack on ICE law enforcement." The agency has been at the center of political battles over immigration enforcement and mass deportations under President Donald Trump's administration.
Trump blamed "Radical Left Terrorists" and Democrats for the violence, writing on social media: "This violence is the result of the Radical Left Democrats constantly demonizing Law Enforcement, calling for ICE to be demolished, and comparing ICE Officers to 'Nazis.'" Sen. JD Vance also labeled the incident the act of "a violent left-wing extremist," despite officials not yet assigning a political motive.
NBC reported that a relative of Jahn described him as not particularly political. Two childhood friends told ABC News they remembered him as an avid gamer and were shocked by the news. "Josh was the least political out of all the people I knew in high school," one said.
