A Date to Watch: August 5, 2016

Update on 7.27.16: Various items in the universe are aligning for August 5, 2016.

It is the 300th anniversary of the Battle of Petrovaradin or Peterwardein, a decisive victory for Austrian forces in the war between Habsburg Monarchy of Austria and the Ottoman Empire of August 5, 1716, at Petrovaradin (then part of Military Frontier, Habsburg Monarchy; today part of Novi Sad, Vojvodina, Serbia). This was the beginning of the end of the Ottomans. After the war, a church commemorating this event was built on Tekije, on the hill over battlefield, and is dedicated to Our Lady of Tekije, also known as Our Lady of the Snows. The church is special, because it has both Catholic and Orthodox altars and both Christian denominations use it. The site is a place of pilgrimage on every August 5.

After the battles that defeated the Ottomans, they had lost most of their European domains 300 years ago. Viennese bakers celebrated their deliverance with what came to be called the croissant, a pastry in the shape of the Muslim crescent. Take a bite out of Islam?

The 100th anniversary of the August 5, 1916, World War I, Battle of Romani, in which the Allied forces, under the command of Archibald Murray, defeat an attacking Ottoman army under the command of Friedrich Freiherr Kress von Kressenstein, securing the Suez Canal and beginning the Ottoman retreat from the Sinai Peninsula.

It is the 50th anniversary of the groundbreaking ceremony of The World Trade Center of August 5, 1966.

The 2016 Olympics opens in Brazil on August 5, 2016.

John Hinkely, Jr., who attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan, appears scheduled to be released on August 5, 2016.

The film Suicide Squad will be opening in wide release on August 5, 2016.

Even close to my home, the Lumineers will be giving the summer's biggest sold-out concert (thousands of people) at Thompson's Point, Portland, Maine, on August 5, 2016.

It will be the first anniversary of the Antioch movie theater shooting of 2015, and the 4th anniversary of the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin shooting of August 5, 2012.

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San Bernardino, Orlando, Dallas, Nice. It is a regular happening, mass deaths. The line of events is now long. It goes back for years. Lone gunmen, terrorist attacks, mass shootings, and even cars & trucks into crowds. What is next on the horizon?

Remember Friday, July 20, 2012? James Holmes opened fire on the patrons at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, just as The Dark Knight Rises began, killing 12 and injuring 70 others. The night was the premiere evening for the film. (See also here, here, and here.)

Do you recall the trailer that ran before the movie that night in Aurora? It was Gangster Squad, and it showed a movie theater being shot up with machine guns. That scene was later taken out of the actual film before it was released.

But the Aurora shooting did not happen in a vacuum. There were precursors. As I wrote a year ago, will the "Next Movie Shooting: August 5, 2016?"

What quickly followed was rather remarkable.

On Thursday, July 23, 2015, at the Grand 16, in Lafayette, Louisiana, an unidentified 59-year-old male opened fire on a crowd of viewers at Trainwreck. On July 24, 2015, I wrote about that in "Fayette Factor Hits Movie Theater."

On August 4, 2015, I warned of the anniversary syndrome with regard to the Lafayette shooting. 

We are coming up to the two-week anniversary for the Trainwreck/Lafayette shooting, always a dangerous window. The date for that anniversary - Wednesday, August 5, 2015.
People should watch out.

Besides Lafayette/Fayette, should we look to other "power name" locations or people*?

My 2015 prediction came to pass for August 5, 2015. I wrote:

On August 5, 2015, my recent forecast came true. Two-week anniversaries are significant. (And four-week, one month cycles, are, as well. That upcoming date is Wednesday, August 19, 2015. Predictive future forecasting is simple. What people do with it, remains problematic. At least, the copycat effect is now not disbelieved, as it was a mere dozen years ago when I wrote my book.)...
The predicted theater incident occurred exactly two weeks after a shooting at a showing of Trainwreck in Lafayette, Louisiana. The hatchet attack and air pistol shooting resulted in the death of the attacker and the injury of three patrons of the theater.

The movie that was playing at the time was Mad Max: Fury Road....

The 2015 event took place at the Carmike Hickory 8 Cinema in Antioch, Tennessee, around 1:15 p.m. The gunman at the Hickory Hollow Cinema, Vincente David Montano was allegedly armed with a hatchet, pepper spray, an Airsoft gun, and a fake bomb. He reportedly was wearing a surgical mask. He was shot dead by a SWAT team as he exited through the theater's rear door.
It happened on Bell Road, a power name mentioned here often. See also here and here....

The Carmike Hickory 8 Cinema and Hickory Hollow Cinema are references to Andrew Jackson. See more here.

And Antioch is dissected too.

But now, the one year anniversary will soon be upon us.

This is not "fear porn." This is using forecast to heighten awareness.

As I said on a recent 42 Minutes podcast interview with Sync Book's William Morgan (7.14.16 #235), people walk around in a fog. I am here to splash some water in some faces to attempt to prevent disasters. 

The movie Suicide Squad opens on Friday, August 5, 2016. Is it subconsciously broadcasting the kinds of messages to those who might shoot up a movie theater? Will it trigger the kind of shooting that we have come to almost (but not really) take for granted in the climate of violence today?

Suicide Squad takes place in a post-Superman world, following the events of Dawn of Justice, as the government grapples with how to respond the next time an alien visits Earth with less noble intentions than the Man of Steel. The answer, according to ruthless intelligence officer Amanda Waller (Viola Davis), is to recruit society’s most vile criminals, armed with lethal skills and superhuman powers. Her first target is possessed archaeologist June Moone/Enchantress (Cara Delevingne).
Waller’s program doesn’t get a green light, though, until Midway City is threatened by a powerful mystical enemy, and Waller needs to activate the whole squad of prisoners. The baddies get a break. Deadshot (Will Smith) has his Second Amendment rights reinstated, Harley (Margot Robbie) is carefully excised from her birdcage, Diablo (Jay Hernandez) is released from his own fireproof fortress of solitude, Boomerang (Jai Courtney) and Slipknot (Adam Beach) strap their weapons back on, and Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) is popped from his swamp. The one condition for their restricted freedom: Obey orders or die, a rule strictly enforced by squad leader Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman), his samurai Katana (Karen Fukuhara), and the explosive devices inserted into their necks courtesy of Wayne Enterprises. (Thanks, Batman!) Throwing a wrench into all these plans is the tatted Gotham City arch-criminal, the Joker (Jared Leto), and his laser-like plan to reunite with his true love, Harley, mission be damned.
But a funny thing happens while these scumbags try to become heroes – they each must absolve themselves of their crimes even if society won’t. And that’s where it gets interesting. A layer of humanity – and sadness – resides underneath these characters’ stories as they each grapple with whether they can be redeemed.

Directed and written by David Ayer, the movie stars Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Jared Leto, Jai Courtney, Joel Kinnaman, Cara Delevingne, Viola Davis, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Adam Beach, Jay Hernandez, and Karen Fukahara.

Suicide Squad will open August 5, 2016.

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*What names to watch?

In Jim Brandon's 1983 book, The Rebirth of Pan: Hidden Faces of the American Earth Spirit, he wrote, regarding the "name game":

I'm not talking here of such spooky tongue-twisters as H.P. Lovecraft's Yog-Sothoth or Arthur Machen's Ishakshar, but of quite ordinary names like Bell, Beall and variants, Crowley, Francis, Grafton, Grubb, Magee/McGee, Mason, McKinney, Montpelier, Parsons, Pike, Shelby, Vernon, Watson/Watt, Williams/Williamson. I have others on file, but these are the ones which I have accumulated the most instances.

In my 1983 Mysterious America, I observed, besides John A. Keel and Charles Fort:

Cryptologic or coincidence? Jim Brandon should be credited with calling attention to the name Watts/Watkins/Watson, and its entanglement with inexplicable things. Some other names involved in mysterious events pinpointed by Brandon are Bell, Mason, Parsons, Pike, Vernon, and Warren. The influence of such names as Mason, Pike, Warren, and Lafayette, for example, issues, in some cryptopolitical and occult way, from their ties to the Masonic tradition.

Promenade des Anglais: 84 Dead in Nice

At least 84 people have been killed and over a hundred more injured in the southern French city of Nice on Thursday, July 14, 2016, after a truck (lorry in the UK reports) was "deliberately driven" into a crowd out celebrating Bastille Day in a confirmed terrorist attack.

Considering I just posted about Zombieland and how Zombie-like the Pokeman Go players are behaving, it is intriguing that the Nice attack is being compared to Zombie movies. 

"Truck Attack similarity to zombie movies," writes Steve Lindsay.

"The white truck ---- equals the White horse ----The First Horseman of Book of Revelations -> R 9/11. The carnage scene today in France was described as apocalyptic."

World War Z and Dawn of the Dead/Two Buses from Hell. (See here and here.)

Those who have read my book, The Copycat Effect, realize that graphic images like these ones (below) actually stimulate more copycats. The bodies on the avenue is the lead photograph from The Drudge Report. I post it here for editorial reasons. To reveal and make known is to undermine the syndrome.

Crowds watching fireworks for France's Independence Day were mowed down by a large white truck that plowed, via a zigzag pattern, through the gathered people.

The first victim to die was a Muslim mother of seven named Fatima Charrihi.

Nicolas Leslie, a University of California, Berkeley, student who was missing after a truck drove through a crowd celebrating Bastille Day in Nice, killing 84, died in the attack, the school said Sunday, relaying information it had received from the FBI.

He is the third American confirmed killed in the Thursday attack. A father and son from Texas also died in the attack.

Sean Copeland, 51, and his 11-year-old son Brodie were among the more than 80 people killed Thursday when a truck zig-zagged through a screaming crowd for more than a mile along the Promenade des Anglais.

The driver of the truck engaged in gunfire with law enforcement officers, and died in the fire fight. Grenades and guns were found in the truck.

An identity card of a 31 year-old Nice resident of Tunisian ancestry was found in the truck, according to various French media.

The @guardiannews quotes @Nice_Matin that the identity of the #NiceAttack driver is allegedly French-Tunisian Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, 31.

The focus is the Promenade des Anglais.  Promenade des Anglais means "Avenue of the English." In the early 1800s, many wealthy English tourists came to Nice to spend their winters. They settled mainly in the area to the west of the Old Town, where they built villas and hotels as well as establishing their own Anglican church and cemetery. Thus this area became the "Avenue of the English."

Bastille Day is the common name given in English-speaking countries to the French National Day, which is celebrated on 14 July each year. In France, it is formally called La fête national (The National Celebration) and commonly Le quatorze juillet (the fourteenth of July).

The French National Day commemorates the Storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789, an important event in Paris in The French Revolution, which had begun two days earlier, as well as the Fête de la Fédération which celebrated the unity of the French people on 14 July 1790. Celebrations are held throughout France. The oldest and largest regular military parade in Europe is held on the morning of 14 July, on the Champs-Élysées in Paris in front of the President of the Republic, along with other French officials and foreign guests.

In an unrelated accident, a fire has been reported and pictured burning at the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

Daisy Chain: 33 in Zombieland Woe, Pokémon Go, and Beyoncé Show

The original meaning of a daisy chain is of a daisy garland created from daisy flowers, and from that a number of analogies have been created, from technological one to those which are sexual in nature. In terms of synchromysticism, it is a natural allusion to a series of seemingly unconnected coincidences that are linked from one to the other.

Let's begin on July 13, 2016, with the cover of the synchrosighted New York Post.

The lead headline gives us "Zombie Land" (even though the article tells us the specific location is spelled "Zombieland"), 33, Brooklyn, and the Walking Dead.

People blindly staggered through the streets of a Brooklyn neighborhood known as “Zombieland” Tuesday morning, propping themselves up against fire hydrants and vomiting foam down their shirts.
But the apocalyptic scene wasn’t for a movie. The victims had apparently smoked a bad batch of the “synthetic marijuana” drug known as K2 — and 33 people had to be hospitalized.
“It looked like a scene out of ‘The Walking Dead,’ ” said Brian Arthur, a lifelong Brooklyn resident who posted footage of the disheartening scene on Facebook. Source.

 33's, numero-13's, and zombie days/daze.

The pregnant synchromystical K2!!

This zombie-tale dovetails with the Pokémon Go Zombie craze. Zachary Hubbard notes that "Pokémon Go" sums to 666, much like "computer" and we all recall that Apple's first computer sold for $666.66.

The bottom banner-headline pulls the idea of 9-11, monsters, Pokémon Go, and therefore both kinds of zombies all together. The New York Post assists the method revealed.

So NYC gives us 33 zombies "on K2," humm? Regular Crowleyan mountain climbers, and most readers here know that Crowley was a noted, accomplished mountain climber, and had a home on the shores of Loch Ness. Talking about "monsters."

Dead bodies found, 666, and more...

Let us not forget Beyoncé.

Or as someone said to me this morning, "Queen Bee is Sirius food for thought."

Online, after posting about the altered image of a gunman in Michigan (to make him look more AfricanAmerican) and noting the OJ Simpson "blackened" imagery used by Time, a colleague wrote me:

i wonder if you'd heard about this idea that O.J.s "white bronco" ties in with modern Pro Sports alchemy, and the rather peculiar reality that some of these YTube numerologists predicted quite early the Broncos' success and did so while placing it all in a symbolic framework of "white horses vs. black panthers". One of these prognosticators even predicted well beforehand that there would be a tribute to the Black Panthers, bc he is so attuned to historic anniversaries. Which is one reason why he predicted the unlikely Lebron/Cavaliers (white horse there too) victory, coming as it did on the birthday of the historic King James. 

And so there was, via Beyoncé.

Thus ends today's beginning "daisy chain" thoughts.

A "daisy chain" from Vassar:

Michigan: Berrien County Courthouse Shooting

There has been reports of an active shooter situation in the Berrien County Courthouse in St. Joseph, Michigan, on July 11, 2016.

Details surrounding the shooting, which happened around 2:30 p.m. at the courthouse on Port Street in downtown St. Joseph, have not been released.

On Monday afternoon, July 11, 2016, some of the breaking news is reaching the public via tweets.

Shooter identified as Larry Darnell Gordon, 44 or 45 (pictured). Publishing of gunman's photograph appears to confuse racial profiling trends. 

Intriguing how the tinting of Gordon's Caucasian image in photo #3 above as "FIRST PHOTO: @ABC7Chicago #ITeam picture of #BerrienCountyCourthouse shooter Larry Darnell Gordon, 45" actually makes him appear AfricanAmerican or biracial.

"RB": What Did Micah X. Johnson Mean By His Bloody Message?

RB in blood....

The Dallas gunman Micah X. Johnson left behind an enigmatic communique that law enforcement officials are attempting to decipher. They publicly are stumped.

Perhaps synchromystic thinkers have some insights to share?

On the night of Thursday, July 7, 2016, as Johnson held off the DPD and others during his stand-off at the El Centro parking garage, he wrote a message on the wall - in his blood. He soon would be the first person killed in the USA by a robot switching on a bomb.

According to remarks of Dallas Police Chief David Brown on Sunday, July 10, 2016, in an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper on State of the Union, Johnson's message is difficult to understand.

Brown said police found bomb-making materials and a journal at the shooter's home that suggested he'd been practicing detonations and appeared ready to take aim at larger targets.
He said the shooter, Micah Johnson, "obviously had some delusion. There was quite a bit of rambling in the journal that's hard to decipher."
Among Dallas investigators' current goals: Figure out what Johnson had meant by "RB," lettering that Brown said he'd written on the wall in blood before his death.
Police are "trying to figure out what those initials mean, but we haven't determined that yet," Brown said.

"At the scene where he was killed, he wrote some lettering in blood on the walls, which leads us to believe he was wounded on the way up the stairwell, on the second floor of the El Centro building and where we detonated the device to end the standoff there was more lettering written in his own blood," he said. Source.

What could "RB" mean?

Does it relate to Johnson's multiple "Black Power" likes on Facebook? Was RB for "Righteous Brother"?

The Urban Dictionary translates "RB" as "Random Boner," or "Rogue Boner," both of which seem inappropriate in this situation.

Other common meanings for "RB" - such as the following - all seem off base:

Running Back (football)
Rock Band (video game)
Rock Bottom
Rubber Band
Root Beer
Roast Beef
Rainbow Bridge

"R&B" = Rhythm and Blues

Or is it something as simple as RB = Red Blood?

What deeper meaning could Micah X. Johnson have been trying to convey? Could understanding "RB" assist in preventing other like-minded copycats?

Do you have any ideas?


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Craig Heimbichner, a coauthor Ritual America, suggests the military term, "Responsible Body"; see here.

Daniel Sale thinks it might be "Rosicrucian Brotherhood."

Joe Mehl mentions "Raging Bull," and notes that coincidentally there have been three bull goring incidents in Spain and elsewhere.

Obama happened to be in Spain today. One fatal goring to a bull fighter occurred live on television.

Dallas Cop Shooting Copycats

"After the horror, come the copycats. " ~ Jim Geraghty, National Review.

Readers of The Copycat Effect: How the Media and Popular Culture Trigger the Mayhem in Tomorrow's Headlines will not be surprised by what we have seen in the wake of the Dallas police killings. There is no left or right in this insight. Only the harsh reality that copycats exist.
Please note the military background, mirroring that of Micah X. Johnson's own record, for several of these gunmen. Does one hear faint echoes of Manchurian Candidates in these incidents? Vulnerable ex-military men who have been triggered by recent events?

GEORGIA

In Valdosta*, Georgia, a man opened fire Friday, July 8, 2016, on a south Georgia police officer investigating a possible vehicle break-in outside an apartment complex, sparking a shootout in which both the officer and suspect were wounded but expected to survive.

The shooting in Valdosta, just north of the Georgia-Florida state line, happened hours after five police officers were killed Thursday night [July 7, 2016] during an ambush in Dallas. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said there was no immediate evidence the shootings were related.
...
Officer Randall Hancock was shot multiple times as he responded to a report of vehicle damage, possibly caused by a break-in, outside the Three Oaks Apartments just after 8 a.m. Friday, Valdosta Police Chief Brian Childress told a news conference.
"The officer called out on the radio screaming for assistance," Childress said, and officers from multiple law enforcement agencies swarmed the apartment complex.
The gunman [Stephen Paul Beck, 22] who fired on Hancock was not immediately identified. Both Childress and Dutton identified the suspect as an Asian male. The officer is white, according to Valdosta city spokeswoman Sementha Mathews.

Dutton said one gunshot hit the officer in the abdomen, just below his protective vest. Other shots hit Hancock's vest. The officer returned fire and wounded the suspect.
Hancock underwent surgery at a local hospital and was stable Friday as he rested with his family by his side, Childress said. The suspect was also considered stable, he said, and was being taken to a hospital in Florida. Source.

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*Valdosta, Georgia

Valdosta was incorporated on December 7, 1860, at which time the county government was moved from nearby Troupville. Citizens of Troupville relocated when the Gulf and Atlantic Railroad was built four miles (about 6 km) away. On July 4, 1860, the engine known as Satilla Number Three pulled the first train into Valdosta on the Gulf and Atlantic Railway.

Troupville, now virtually abandoned, had been named after Governor George Troup, for whom Troup County, Georgia, was also named. Valdosta was named after Troup's estate, Val d'Osta (occasionally the Valdosta spelling was used as well), which itself was named after the Valle d'Aosta in Italy. The name Aosta (Latin: Augusta), refers to Emperor Augustus. Thus, the name Valdosta can be interpreted literally as meaning "Valley of Augustus' City". Originally, a long-standing rumor held that the city's name meant "vale of beauty." The land around Valdosta is flat. 

After the American Civil War, over one hundred African Americans, families of farmers, craftsmen, and laborers, emigrated from Lowndes County to Arithington, Liberia, Africa, in 1871 and 1872, looking for a better life. This was made possible with the support of the American Colonization Society. The first group, which left in 1871, was led by Jefferson Bracewell, and the second group was led by Aaron Miller. Source.

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MISSOURI

The St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney's Office has charged a 31-year old man in connection with the shooting of a Ballwin police officer.
The suspect, identified as Antonio Taylor, was charged with first-degree assault of a law enforcement officer, armed criminal action, and being a felon in possession of a weapon.
The incident happened around 11 a.m. [July 8, 2016] in the 300 block of New Ballwin Road. The officer, a 9-year police veteran, pulled over a vehicle on a routine traffic stop. As the officer returned to his squad car, the suspect exited his car and shot the officer.
St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Bob McCulloch said the suspect walked up to the officer, who by this time was on the ground, and shot him again.
The suspect fled the scene before leaving his car abandoned. He was apprehended after a short foot pursuit.
The officer was rushed to a local hospital for treatment. He'd been with the Ballwin Police Department approximately 2 years prior to the shooting.
Taylor, who was arrested about 30 minutes after the shooting, remains in custody on $500,000 bond. Source.

 WISCONSIN

In Wisconsin, 43-year-old Byron Cowan was arrested and accused of making threats against white law enforcement officers on social media, police said in a statement [July 8, 2016].
“Be first to shoot first. I encourage every black man in America to strap up. It is clear. I encourage every white officer to kiss there love ones goodbye,” Cowan posted on social media, according to the Racine Police Department. Source.

GEORGIA

Another officer was fired upon by a motorist north of Atlanta. Source.

TENNESSEE

Near Bristol, Tennessee, there were sniper incidents that directly proceeded the Dallas events that had several of the same elements.

The shooting spree in Tennessee began around 2:20 a.m. Thursday, July 7, 2016. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation alleges the gunman, armed with an assault rifle, a pistol and a large amount of ammunition, fired shots through the window of the Days Inn on Volunteer Parkway. The front desk clerk, Deborah Watts, was struck and injured. 

Evidence is marked at a crime scene at O'Reilly Auto Parts connected to the 

shooting on Volunteer Parkway early Thursday morning in Tennessee.

Hours before a black Army veteran shot 12 officers at a Black Lives Matter protest in Dallas, another former Army soldier was accused of shooting indiscriminately at passing cars and police on a Tennessee highway.
And like the Dallas sniper, Lakeem Keon Scott said he was motivated to act in response to police violence against African-Americans, authorities said Friday.
One woman died and three others, including a police officer, were wounded Thursday morning [July 7, 2016] in the Tennessee rampage, one of several spasms of violence across the country this week amid boiling tensions over policing and race.
...
Civilians also have been caught in the fray. The woman who died in Tennessee was a newspaper carrier, driving down the highway.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation announced that its preliminary investigation revealed the suspect, a 37-year-old black former soldier, was troubled by the other incidents. All those shot were white, police said....Scott — allegedly armed with an assault rifle, a pistol and a large amount of ammunition — was wounded in a shootout with police early Thursday and remains hospitalized in serious but stable condition....Newspaper carrier Jennifer Rooney, a 44-year-old mother of two, was struck by a bullet as she drove to pick up papers for the morning delivery. The Bristol Herald-Courier reported that her car careened over a median and crashed through a chain link fence. Source.

Scott served from January 1998 to June 1999. He was a private in the 5th Battalion 5th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, stationed in South Korea.

The Copycat Effect: How the Media and Popular Culture Trigger the Mayhem in Tomorrow's Headlines

Before Micah X., There Was Mark Essex

The profile of the Dallas shooter, Micah Xavier Johnson, 25, of Mesquite, Texas, is emerging of an anti-white hater of the police. In a strange twist, he reminds me of Mark James Essex. (See more on the 7/7 shootings, here.)

TMZ stated:

Johnson's social media accounts reveal he was a member of several Black Panther organizations, including The New Black Panther Party Houston Chapter.
Johnson also subscribed to a Facebook group called "The Black Matrix," which aims to dismantle the system it believes "white societal elites" have put in place to "control the perceptions of its Black populations."
Johnson -- who served in the U.S. Army -- had involvement with Facebook communities including "Filming Cops" and "Police The Police," which describes itself as a platform for documenting and archiving police misconduct, brutality and abuse of authority.
Dallas PD Chief David Brown said before they took down Johnson he said he was angry about police brutality and wanted to kill white officers. Source.

Heavy.com filed a report that...

Micah Johnson’s now-deleted Facebook page provides few details about his life. In May, he posted a “Black Power” poster, one of the few images on his page.
His cover photo is the Pan-African flag.
He liked pages connected to Elijah Mohammed, the founder of the Nation of Islam, and also like The New Black Panther Party and the Black Riders Liberation Party. Source.

The shooter in Dallas killed five police officers, was a Black Power advocate, and had the Pan-African flag as his cover photo on Facebook (see at top). 

He was an Army veteran, used a sniper-like position, and expressed a hatred of whites. Johnson went on his mass shooting spree in the wake of police killings of AfricanAmericans in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Falcon Heights, Minnesota.

There are echoes in Micah X's case of a similar individual from the past.

In my book The Copycat Effect, I noted the oft-forgotten case of the New Orleans sniper, Mark James Essex, who also targeted police officers:

As Peter Hernon recalls in his book, A Terrible Thunder: The Story of the New Orleans Sniper, on New Year’s Eve in New Orleans, 1972, Mark James Essex began one of the most violent and deadly sniper attacks that any American city had ever seen. Mark Essex was a quiet African-American man who grew to hate whites in the Navy. Then he went to Harlem, New York, associating himself with the Eldridge Cleaver faction of the Black Panther party. In August 1972, he moved to New Orleans and began studying African culture, attempting to learn Swahili and Zulu. Hernon says that the killing of two black Southern University students at Baton Rouge had motivated Essex during a standoff with sheriff's deputies. Essex had taken up the Black Panther urban guerilla faction, the Black Liberation Army’s call to kill police. Essex would do that and much more. Before Essex sniper attacks were through, 600 police officers and a helicopter gunship were used to stop him. The New York Times reported on January 8, 1973, “After a day of terror…New Orleans policemen, in a borrowed Marine helicopter… swooped out of rain and darkness to provide a mobile platform for police sharpshooters to hunt down snipers on the roof of the Downtown Howard Johnson's Motor Lodge. The dead sniper, who was dressed in green, was reported to have been riddled by tracer bullets.” Ten would die (including Essex and five police) and 13 were wounded (including one firefighter and four police officers).

Mark James Robert Essex (August 12, 1949 – January 7, 1973) killed nine people, including five policemen, and wounded 13 others in New Orleans on December 31, 1972, and January 7, 1973.

Essex joined the United States Navy as a dental technician in 1969, stationed in San Diego, California, where he claimed he was subjected to two years of ceaseless racial abuse.

The Mark James Essex entry at Wikipedia contains a couple sections detailing his shooting spree:

At the age of 23 and living in New Orleans, [Mark James] Essex began targeting policemen. On New Year's Eve 1972, Essex parked his car and went down Perdido Street, a block from the New Orleans Police Department. He hid in a parking lot across from the busy central lockup and used a 5-shot Ruger Model 44 .44-caliber semi-automatic carbine to kill Cadet Alfred Harrell, 19. Lt. Horace Perez was also wounded in the attack. Harrell was black, although Essex had claimed he was going to kill "just honkies" before beginning his murderous attacks. He also carried a Colt .38-caliber revolver (which had its serial number scratched off) on his person.
Essex evaded being taken into custody by jumping a chain link fence and running across I-10, while setting off firecrackers as a diversion. Essex then ran into Gert Town, an area renowned for high crime and hostility towards police. In Gert Town, Essex broke into the Burkart building, a warehouse and manufacturing plant on the corner of Euphrosine and South Gayoso. Upon entering the building, an alarm alerted police to a break-in at the business. A dog unit with Officers Edwin Hosli Sr. and Harold Blappert responded to the call, not realizing the connection of the break-in to the attack on central lockup.
When Officer Hosli went to get his German shepherd out of the back seat of the car, Essex shot him in the back. Essex then started shooting the car, shattering the windshield. Officer Blappert then crawled across the front seat to the radio and called for back-up. Blappert fired four shots at the spot where he saw muzzle flashes from Essex's rifle, then he pulled his partner's body onto the front seat of the car and waited for back-up. When the back-up arrived, they sent two dogs into the building to search for Essex, but Essex had escaped again. Officer Hosli died of his injuries on March 5, 1973.
At 10:15 a.m. on January 7, 1973, Essex shot grocer Joe Perniciaro with his .44 Magnum carbine and next carjacked Marvin Albert as he sat in his 1968 Chevrolet Chevelle outside his house on South White Street. Essex drove Albert's stolen vehicle to the Downtown Howard Johnson's Hotel at 330 Loyola Avenue in New Orleans' Central Business District, across the street from City Hall and the Louisiana Supreme Court. After almost hitting a startled motorist in the hotel's parking garage, Essex began to climb the stairs, only to find the fire doors locked on floor after floor.
Gaining entry from a fire stairwell on the 18th floor, the top floor of the building, Essex startled three Howard Johnson's employees, all of whom were African-American. Essex told them not to worry, as he was only there to kill white people. The employees did not share his racist views and promptly notified the authorities. In the hallway in front of room 1829, Essex found 27-year-old vacationing Dr. Robert Steagall and his wife Betty, a couple from Virginia enjoying a belated honeymoon. After a struggle with Dr. Steagall, Essex shot him in the chest and shot Betty in the back of the head. The Steagalls both died of their injuries. In the room, he soaked telephone books with lighter fluid and set them ablaze under the curtains. Essex dropped a Pan-African flag onto the floor beside the bodies of the couple as he left. On the 11th floor, Essex shot his way into several rooms and set more fires. On the 11th floor, he shot and killed Frank Schneider, the hotel's assistant manager, and shot Walter Collins, the hotel's general manager. Collins died in the hospital three weeks later as a result of his gunshot wounds.
The police and fire department quickly arrived. Two officers tried to use a fire truck's ladder to enter the building, but were shot at by Essex. A few minutes later, Essex shot and killed NOPD Officers Phillip Coleman and Paul Persigo from his perch on the 18th floor. Times-Picayune photographer G.E. Arnold took an iconic photo as Coleman died of a head wound in Duncan Plaza. Arnold also captured a shot of a wounded Eighth District NOPD officer, Ken Solis, shot in the shoulder and leaning against a tree as another officer, Dave McCann, was trying to stop the bleeding, all while other police and bystanders take cover. While trying to rescue trapped officers, Deputy Superintendent Louis Sirgo was fatally shot in the spine by Essex. Lt. Lewis Townsend, a Tulane medical student, walked into the open field to carry Sirgo out of the line of fire, then returned to class.
Seeing the story on TV, Lt. General Chuck Pitman of the United States Marine Corps offered the use of a CH-46 military helicopter to assist the police officers. The helicopter was loaded with armed men and dispatched to the hotel. By this time, Essex had retreated up to the roof of the building where he and the helicopter exchanged many rounds over many hours. As nightfall came, Essex managed to hole himself up in a concrete cubicle that would protect him in the southeast side of the roof. As he stepped out once again in the open to fire again on the helicopter, and after hitting the helicopter's transmission, Essex was barraged with fatal gunfire from police sharpshooters on the roofs of adjacent buildings as well as the automatic weapons aboard the helicopter. An autopsy later revealed more than 200 gunshot wounds.
Before the attack, the television station WWL received a handwritten note from Essex. It read:

Africa greets you. On December 31, 1972, aprx. 11 p.m., the downtown New Orleans Police Department will be attacked. Reason — many, but the death of two innocent brothers will be avenged. And many others.P.S. Tell pig Giarrusso the felony action squad ain't shit.Mata

Both were veterans, had the Baton Rouge precursors of police killing blacks, used Pan-African flags, followed Black Power movements, employed sniper shooting sprees, and left five police officers dead. Both were killed when law enforcers used unconventional killing machines - in the case from 1973, a military helicopter, and in the latest, a bomb carrying robot.

Micah X. Johnson and Mark James Essex.

The overlaps are chilling.