The gunman who attacked Dallas police headquarters in an armored van early Saturday provided authorities with a name and a motive for the assault, but officials said definitive identification will wait until a medical examination is completed. 
 
 Concerns about explosive ordnance after pipe bombs were found near the headquarters building south of downtown prevented police from recovering the man's body hours after a police sniper targeted him through the windshield of the van. 
 
 Officers used a robot to safely approach the vehicle to confirm the gunman was dead, and they alerted the public that some planned detonations might be heard as they tried to gain entry. 
 
 Two loud blasts came from the vehicle about noon as authorities tried to neutralize explosives believed to be inside. 
 
 Police spokesman Maj. Max Geron later said at least two pipe bombs were found in the vehicle, which had ports in its walls to fire guns from. 
 
 As you can see the armored van used in the attack is burning #DPDattack pic.twitter.com/VIby2p5kCq — Dallas Police Assoc (@DPA_PoliceAssoc) June 13, 2015 
 
 Police had spent hours trying to negotiate with the man in the armored van he used during his assault on police headquarters before he led dozens of squad cars on a chase that ended along Interstate 45 in Hutchins. 
 
 No one was injured by the man, who identified himself as James Boulware, a 35-year-old with a history of family violence. 
 
 Dallas police Chief David Brown said the gunman said he was going to blow up police because they “took his child and accused him of being a terrorist.” 
 
 'I tried to tell him that the police are just doing their job' 
 
 Boulware's mother, Jeannine, declined to comment Saturday morning when she was reached at her Dallas home by phone. 
 
 "I don't want to talk to the media. I want to talk to my son. I want my grandson to talk to his father. Do not call this number again," she said. 
 
 The suspect's father, Jim Boulware of Carrollton, said his son had blamed police for losing custody of his child, who is in middle school. 
 
 But despite previous threats of violence, he said he never expected anything like Saturday's events. 
 
 "He blames the police for taking his son away from him," Jim Boulware said. "I tried to tell him that the police are just doing their job." 
 
 The elder Boulware said he saw his son Friday night and that there was no indication that trouble was coming. 
 
 Jim Boulware did say that he had noticed a strange van but that his son's plans had been to buy a vehicle he could live in and use to travel to a friend's home in West Texas. ||||| 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." 
 
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 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." 
 
 This article tagged under: Police 
 
 Robots 
 
 Dallas Shooting
– The chaos in Dallas is over after the city's police headquarters was attacked by a gunman with bombs. A police sniper has indeed killed the suspect inside his van, reports AP. It took a while to confirm because police were cautious about approaching the vehicle. It also appears that he acted alone, contrary to earlier police reports that up to four people were involved. Police Chief David Brown said the man identified himself as James Boulware and blamed police for "accusing him of being a terrorist" and causing him to lose custody of his son. He allegedly opened fire on police headquarters with automatic weapons about 12:30am and left two explosive devices near the building. One of them, described as a pipe bomb, detonated as an explosives robot moved it, but nobody was injured. Authorities say the gunman led police on a chase to a fast-food parking lot, where he holed up in his van and claimed it was rigged with bombs. The Dallas Morning News reports police arrested a James Boulware, now 50, in 2013 after he threatened to attack his family, churches, and schools, and had obtained firearms, ammunition, and body armor. "He blames the police for taking his son away from him," his father, Jim Boulware, tells the newspaper. "I tried to tell him that the police are just doing their job."