Dallas Police Chief David Brown dismissed criticism that the tactic, believed to have been the first use of a police robot for that purpose in the United States, went too far. | AP Dallas police chief on robot bomb: I'd do it again

Dallas Police Chief David Brown on Sunday sharply defended his department's decision to send in a robot rigged with C4 explosive to end the standoff between officers and Micah Johnson, the man believed to have killed five law enforcement officers Thursday night.

"I was in radio contact with the SWAT team negotiating once we had him pinned down in the second floor of the El Centro College building," Brown explained on CNN's "State of the Union." "And they began conveying to me that this person was in a ... gunfight with them. And he was in a position such that they could not see him, he was secreted behind a brick corner.” Any effort to get a sniper shot “to end his trying to kill us would be to expose officers to grave danger."


The other option, Brown said, was continuing negotiations, which had already lasted two hours and had not been productive.

"He just basically lied to us, playing games, laughing at us, singing, asking how many did he get and that he wanted to kill some more and that there were bombs there so there was no progress on the negotiation. And I began to feel that it was only at a split second he would charge us and take out many more before we would kill him," Brown said, recalling that he told officers to use "your creativeness to come up with a plan to do it."

After he came back from a news conference, Brown said officers presented a plan to arm a robot with "a device to detonate behind the corner within a few feet of where he was that would take him out."

"And I approved it," Brown said. "And I'll do it again if presented with the same circumstances."

Brown dismissed criticism that the tactic, believed to have been the first use of a police robot for that purpose in the United States, went too far.

"I just don't give any quarter to critics who ask these types of questions from the comforts and safety away from the incident. You have to be on the ground and try and determine — I've got former SWAT experience here in Dallas, and you have to trust your people to make the calls necessary to save their lives. It's their lives that are at stake, not these critics' lives who are in the comforts of their homes or offices," Brown said.

"So, you know, that's not worth my time to debate at this point. We believe that we saved lives by making this decision. And you know, again, I appreciate critics, but they're not on the ground, and their lives are not being put at risk by debating what tactics to take. And I'll leave that to them for a later discussion."

Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings said he "supported [Brown] completely" on the decision, telling CBS' "Face the Nation" that "it was the safest way to approach it, and we talked to this man a long time and he threatened to blow up our police officers."

"We went to his home, we saw that there was bomb-making equipment later," Rawlings said of the investigation. "So it was very important that we realized that he may not be bluffing, so we ask him, do want to come out safely or do you want to stay there and we're going to take you down, and he chose the latter."

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