Military service changed suspected Dallas gunman Micah Johnson from an extrovert into a hermit, his parents have said.

Around 130 people have been arrested in Baton Rouge as demonstrations continue over shootings by police.

Barack Obama will meet relatives of the five police officers killed in Dallas when a gunman opened fire on a protest march, the White House said.

MY SISTER is in Dallas at the moment. She WhatsApps to say that it’s not all stetsons and steers. I wouldn’t know, having ever only seen it on the telly when it was shiny skyscrapers and melodramatic family breakfasts on windswept verandahs with JR and Sue Ellen.

The suspect in the deadly attack on Dallas police taunted authorities during two hours of negotiations, laughing at them, singing and at one point asking how many officers he had shot, the city's police chief has revealed.

US President Barack Obama has decided to cut short his first trip to Spain in the wake of the shootings of black men by police in Louisiana and Minnesota and the killing of five police officers by a sniper in Dallas.

An Army veteran killed by Dallas police after he fatally shot five officers amassed a personal arsenal at his home, including bomb-making materials, bulletproof vests, rifles, ammunition and a journal of combat tactics.

Responsibility for the murder of five police officers in Dallas has been claimed by a radical civil rights group called the Black Power Political Organization.

HARDLY a summer goes by without riots erupting on the streets of American cities over the killing of black people by white policemen. 

Barack Obama has said the shooting of about a dozen police officers in Dallas was a vicious, calculated and despicable attack on law enforcement.

Update 3.49pm: A suspect in the gun attack on police in the heart of Dallas told officers he was upset over recent police shootings of black men and wanted to kill white people, according to officials.

The death toll has since risen as five Texas police officers have been killed and seven wounded when shots were fired at a Black Lives Matter rally in downtown Dallas.