US: Dallas police receive new threat

NEW YORK

Police in Dallas, Texas, said Saturday they have received a new threat two days after a former U.S. army veteran allegedly killed five officers during an otherwise peaceful Black Lives Matter protest in the city.

Police did not identify the nature of the threat but told media outlets to cut live feeds if they showed the police headquarters or branches, NBC News reported.

Authorities tweeted that officers were "searching the police parking garage for a suspicious person", refuting media reports of gunfire by saying it was a SWAT team setting off a device to enter a locked fence.

"Officers are planning to breach a lock door in the garage with a shotgun," the department said.

Officials later said officers completed a search of the garage and no suspect was found.

A K9 officer was conducting a second search as a precautionary measure, it added.

SWAT teams are accompanied by police helicopters and armored vehicles in their search, according to an Anadolu Agency correspondent at the scene.

The attack on officers Thursday night occurred on the heels of the shooting deaths of two black men by white officers on consecutive days earlier this week, triggering mass protests across the country.

A day after the attack police say was carried out by 25-year-old veteran Micah Johnson, who had served in Afghanistan, a flurry of protests in the U.S. and overseas were held, with demonstrators pouring into the streets in San Francisco; Newark, New Jersey; Rochester, New York; Louisiana, Phoenix, Arizona and London.

As many as 100 demonstrators were arrested in rallies held in Rochester and also in Louisiana -- the scene of one of the recent police-involved shootings that claimed the life of 37-year-old Alton Sterling on July 5 that helped spark protests.

Hours later on July 6, 31-year-old Philando Castile was shot to death by an officer during a traffic stop in St. Paul, Minnesota.

President Barack Obama has cut short a trip to Europe because of the officer shootings and will visit Dallas early next week.