A 29-year-old Texas man opened fire on an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Dallas on Wednesday, the second instance in two weeks of a gunman setting up with a rifle on a rooftop, opening fire and communicating a message through writing on bullets.
Multiple senior law enforcement officials briefing on the investigation identified the shooter as Joshua Jahn. He was found dead with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Vice President JD Vance said evidence that is “not yet public” indicates the shooter was “politically motivated” to go after law enforcement and people enforcing the border.
Vance called Jahn “a violent left-wing extremist.” Authorities have yet to release an official motive. The FBI special agent in charge in Dallas, Joe Rothrock, said the attack was “targeted violence.”
Three detainees in a van in the facility’s sally port were shot. No ICE officers were hurt in the shooting, Dallas police said at a news conference. One person was killed, and two others are in critical condition, according to federal officials.
A bullet found near the shooter had the words “anti-ICE” written on it, according to the FBI. Other recent shooters, including those who assassinated Charlie Kirk and killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, have also engraved messages on bullets.
The anti-ICE messaging surprised Joshua Jahn’s brother, Noah Jahn.
“He didn’t have strong feelings about ICE as far as I knew,” Noah Jahn said of his brother, who DHS officials said fired at the ICE building “indiscriminately.”
Public records show that Joshua Jahn registered as an independent in Oklahoma and last voted in November.
In 2016, he was charged in Texas with delivering marijuana in an amount greater than ¼-ounce but less than 5 pounds. He pleaded guilty to the felony charge, records show.
Noah Jahn described his brother as “unique” but said he was not one he ever would have thought would be involved in a politically motivated shooting.
“I didn’t think he was politically interested,” he said. “He wasn’t interested in politics on either side as far as I knew.”
He said they grew up about 30 miles away in Allen, Texas. He said that they were Boy Scouts and that his brother took an interest in coding but was unemployed. Joshua Jahn had been planning to move onto their parents’ property in Oklahoma, his brother said.
Noah Jahn said that the last time he saw his brother was two weeks ago at their parents’ house and that nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
A man who said he had known Joshua Jahn since his early teens as a member of the same Boy Scout troop in Texas said Jahn did voice his opinions about politics, and he recalled a conversation several years ago about migrant caravans entering the United States.
“He was just upset about how people were not understanding people’s desperation to get out of bad situations and how immigration was being handled as a whole,” the troop member said.
The troop member, who asked not to be named for fear of harassment, said that the shooter was “passionate” about his stance on issues but that he did not know him to be “the action type of person.”
The troop member was surprised that Jahn had been identified as the shooter.
“He was pretty against it,” the fellow troop member said of the notion of gun violence, “so that’s why this is making it even more surprising. He was not somebody that would condone those kind of actions.”
The troop member said he remained friends with him as an adult but lost touch about five years ago when Jahn said he was planning to move to Oklahoma.
He said the shooter’s father was an active troop leader. He said Jahn had helped him move a couple of times.
“He was one of those people that I would call for help, just in different situations, whether it be emotional support or physical support,” the troop member said.
According to Noah Jahn, his brother was “not a marksman” but knew how to use their parents’ rifle. Noah said he did not think his brother would have been able to fire accurately from a nearby roof.
