By Naomi Martin

The Dallas Morning News

DALLAS — The mother of the man who fired at least 40 bullets at the Dallas Police Department's headquarters earlier this month said police should have tried harder to keep her son alive.

James Boulware was fatally shot by a SWAT sniper as he sat in an armored van with built-in gun ports after a chase and 12-hour standoff on June 13.

James Boulware. (Dallas PD Image)

Related feature Suspect only death in attack on Dallas police HQ A man opened fire outside Dallas police headquarters from an armored van, resulting in a street battle that ended in a deadly standoff.

Jeannine Hammond, in an email to the news media Sunday, questioned why police didn't seek medical attention for Boulware, 35, during the standoff or contact his parents to help negotiate with the "obviously mentally ill man."

She also urged the release of all audio recordings and other public records related to the rampage.

"The police appear to be heroes," she wrote, "when I think they handled the situation very badly by killing a wounded person who probably would have surrendered and then burning the evidence by detonating the van."

Though the Police Department declined to comment, law enforcement experts challenged Hammond's criticism, saying police followed protocol.

"It was completely justified, what the police did," said Keith Wenzel, a former Dallas police trainer. "They followed policy, quite frankly, to a T."

Hammond wrote that police may have felt they "needed to kill a white suspect to prove that they weren't playing favorites, since there have been so many black men shot by police lately."

Her email came more than a week after the shootout, chase and standoff in which 14 officers returned fire at Boulware. There were no other injuries, and the officers have been placed on administrative leave, which is routine after shootings.

After the 12:30 a.m. attack on the Jack Evans Police Headquarters on South Lamar Street, SWAT team members called Boulware's cellphone and began trying to talk him out of the vehicle. During the conversation, Boulware identified himself and said he had attacked the police headquarters because officers took his child and called him a terrorist.

He also told police the vehicle was rigged to explode -- a threat that became credible after police discovered a bag with pipe bombs at police headquarters.

After more than four hours, SWAT team members believed negotiations with Boulware were deteriorating.

"It is very unfortunate that Mr. Boulware has put his family in this situation," said Frederick Frazier, vice president of the Dallas Police Association. "But it's the harsh reality that Mr. Boulware made his own decisions that caused the police to react to this situation in the safest way possible, and unfortunately that was to stop him at all costs."

Police officials have not provided a detailed timeline because their investigation of the incident remains open.

They have said they think Boulware died around 4:45 a.m. when a sniper shot a .50-caliber rifle at the van. But because of the bomb threat, officers didn't approach the vehicle until hours later. Around noon, they detonated explosives inside the van, setting it on fire, and police then confirmed that Boulware was dead.

Frazier said police couldn't release all of the details about the case because of the continuing investigation. "Police practices are not always as transparent as the public would like to see," he said.

But Wenzel, the former Dallas police trainer, said generally that police lose hope of a peaceful resolution once a person fires at officers.

"That kind of eliminates the mind-set of 'We can negotiate this person to a successful and happy ending,'" Wenzel said. "At that point, you really don't get the mother involved."

Officers couldn't take Boulware to a hospital or provide medical attention to him during the standoff because he told them his van was rigged with explosives, Wenzel said.

Hammond was more critical of police Sunday than she had been previously. After the shooting, she apologized to police for her son's actions. She also said she slept with a gun because she was afraid of her son and his deteriorating mental illness.

"I felt I had to write this because something's wrong with this entire scenario," Hammond wrote Sunday. "It happened the very day the Texas governor was to sign open carry here in Texas and two days before Jade Helm 15 was to begin," she wrote, referring to military exercise planned in Texas.



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