Officials say Joshua Jahn shot at the Dallas ICE office from a nearby roof before taking his own life. Those who knew him were shocked.
By Lilly Kersh and Chase Rogers
Dallas Morning News
https://www.dallasnews.com/
Azul Sordo / Staff Photographer
FAIRVIEW — Just off Country Club Road here, a narrow street without sidewalks winds past well-kept lawns and brick mailboxes that match the large suburban houses they front. It curls into a quiet cul-de-sac, where a two-story house sits partly veiled by tall trees.
In recent days, after the crush of federal law enforcement agents and television news crews had cleared, a lone Fairview police patrol vehicle was parked out front. It guarded the home of Joshua Jahn, the 29-year-old man suspected of climbing onto a building near an Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Dallas and opening fire on those below.
Authorities have said three detainees were shot. Two of them — Miguel Ángel García Medina, a Mexican citizen living in Arlington, and Norlan Guzmán Fuentes of El Salvador — died. So did Jahn, who took his own life. Jahn had set out to target ICE agents, not detainees, officials said, though no law enforcement personnel were injured.
Attempts to frame the attack in political terms were swift. President Donald Trump, in a post on Truth Social, his social media platform, called for an end to violence from “Deranged Radical Leftists,” while Vice President J.D. Vance labeled Jahn a “violent left-wing extremist.”
People who came across Jahn in the years before the Sept. 24 shooting told The Dallas Morning News he had not been overtly political; the former Boy Scout seemed to have enjoyed video games and marijuana. He was unemployed, had dropped out of college and worked odd jobs, including at a cannabis farm in Washington.
His brother, Noah Jahn, told NBC News that his brother didn’t show much interest in politics. Nor, he said, did his brother express strong feelings against ICE. Noah Jahn did not respond to phone calls from The News requesting comment.
Evidence recovered from Jahn’s home and publicized by federal authorities in the hours and days after the shooting paints a different picture.
Jahn wrote that he hoped his actions would give ICE agents “real terror,” induce stress in their lives and interfere with their work — which he likened to human trafficking, Nancy Larson, acting U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Texas, said in a news conference.
Larson said recovered messages indicated Jahn hated the federal government and did not intend to survive the attack on the Dallas field office, where he “indiscriminately” fired at the facility and transport vans.
The messages said he intended to “maximize lethality” against ICE agents — not target detainees, but officials said he acknowledged the potential for other casualties. Investigators said the word “ANTI-ICE” was written on an unspent round found at the scene. Larson said Jahn “very likely acted alone.”
Angela Piazza / Staff Photographer
A history with marijuana
The portrait of Jahn remains incomplete. Disclosures from investigators have centered on recovered evidence they say suggest his motive, while media reports — often relying on accounts from people who knew Jahn years ago who asked not to be publicly identified — offer few details about his life.
Jahn had grown up in Allen, his brother Noah Jahn told NBC, and was involved in Boy Scouts, now called Scouting America. Noah Jahn told the station his brother was “unique,” enjoyed coding and planned to move to the family’s property in Oklahoma.
Jahn worked assembling and installing solar panels in the Dallas-Fort Worth area about eight years ago, according to a former employer. His LinkedIn profile also listed previous employment at fast food and retail stores in Allen, including at Domino’s and Target.
Ryan Sanderson owns the legal cannabis farm in Washington state where Jahn worked temporarily around 2017. Sanderson said Jahn drove from Texas to Washington and spent months sleeping in his car while working at the farm harvesting the plant.
“I thought that was a little odd,” Sanderson said in the interview. “He was … very interested in marijuana.”
At the time, Jahn was a trim man in his early 20s, Sanderson remembers, a “regular, soft-spoken guy … just like anybody else his age” that didn’t discuss politics or show any violent tendencies.
“He fit right in,” Sanderson said. “He was just a normal kid … trying to find his way.”
Collin County records show Jahn pleaded guilty to a felony marijuana charge in a Texas court in 2016. He was placed on probation and paid fines for delivering between a quarter ounce and 5 pounds of marijuana the year before.
Fairview police said other than his drug charge, filed by Allen police, Jahn did not raise any red flags for the department.
“He was not on our radar,” Fairview police Chief Chris Chandler said in an interview. “We had no history with him.”
Jahn left behind some evidence of his motivation but how he became the person who was capable of his final fatal actions might never be fully understood — and is open to speculation.
Ronald Levant, an author and professor emeritus of psychology at The University of Akron, researches male psychology and gun violence. The Violence Prevention Project reports 98% of mass shootings are committed by male shooters.
Based on what he’s read and heard in media accounts, Levant believes Jahn had not yet developed what he terms an “adult life structure,” which is defined by having a permanent partner and employment. Levant said that may have contributed to his resentment.
“Young men whose lives are not working out … are very resentful,” Levant said in an interview. “These men feel they’ve been screwed over, they’ve been slighted, they’ve been oppressed and they’re angry as hell. And if the right circumstances emerge, i.e. the possession of a gun, a specific target that the man focuses his resentment on, it’s very likely that a shooting will occur.”
Whether that broad characterization can be applied specifically to Jahn remains an open question.
Azul Sordo / Staff Photographer
A rattled suburb
Collin College, a community college with campuses across Collin County, confirmed that Jahn attended the school at various times between Spring 2013 and 2018. He previously studied mechanical engineering at The University of Texas at Dallas from 2014 to 2016. The university’s admission’s office confirmed he failed most of his classes.
Jahn graduated from Allen High School in 2014 and was enrolled in the Allen ISD from kindergarten to his senior year, the district confirmed. He attended Anderson Elementary and Curtis Middle School.
Several former students who went to school with Jahn at Allen High School said they did not remember him. Neighbors said they did not know him well and were shocked by news of the Sept. 24 shooting.
That feeling was felt across the Fairview community.
The town of about 11,000 nestled 30 miles north of Dallas between Allen and McKinney is known for maintaining a more rural character than surrounding areas. A city ordinance here restricts light pollution and protects dark skies. The city’s slogan is “Keeping it Country.”
“There’s kind of a somber mood in the community in Fairview,” Mayor John Hubbard said in the days following the attack, disheartened by recent political violence. “I think we’re seeing it not just in North Texas. I think we’re seeing it everywhere.”
It’s not the first time the area has experienced or been connected to tragic violence. Nearby Allen was the site of a 2023 mass shooting at a shopping mall where a gunman fatally shot eight people and injured others. Gunman Patrick Crusius, who killed nearly two dozen people in a racist attack at an El Paso Walmart in 2019, is from Allen, and attended Collin College during the same timeframe as Jahn.
In a public Facebook post in 2022, Jahn’s mother criticized Texas’ gun laws, accusing state leaders of not addressing gun violence and failing residents. Sharon Jahn quoted a song by Jacques Brel in one post.
“If we only have love / We can melt all the guns / And then give the new world / To our daughters and sons,” the post stated.
Sharon Jahn’s LinkedIn post shows she worked at a massage school in Plano. The suspected gunman’s father, Andrew Jahn, retired in 2020, according to his LinkedIn profile, after a 36-year career as a mechanical engineer.
Multiple attempts to reach Jahn’s family by phone were unsuccessful.
A planned attack
Although some who knew him were surprised by Jahn’s actions, investigators said Jahn planned the attack extensively.
FBI Director Kash Patel wrote in a post on X that the suspect downloaded a document containing a list of Department of Homeland Security facilities, searched several times for “ballistics” and for the video of Charlie Kirk’s assassination in the days before the shooting. Last month, he searched several apps that track the movements of ICE agents.
An email address and phone number associated with Jahn are linked to several social media accounts and have similar usernames to accounts on Reddit and Myspace.
Authorities said Jahn likely deleted evidence from his devices. Investigators did not find evidence of membership to specific groups.
Public records show Jahn owned the 2016 Toyota parked outside a building near the ICE office early Wednesday. Investigators said the car was seen with a large ladder attached hours before the shooting.
Federal officials said Jahn legally obtained the rifle he used in the shooting, an 8mm bolt-action rifle, in August. His brother told NBC that the family had a rifle Joshua Jahn knew how to use, but he said he did not think his brother would have been able to fire accurately on the Dallas field office from a nearby roof, where he was found dead.
By Lilly Kersh
Lilly Kersh is a local government accountability reporter at The Dallas Morning News covering Collin County with a focus on McKinney and Plano. She graduated in 2024 from the University of Georgia with a degree in journalism and was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia.
By Chase Rogers
Chase Rogers is a public safety reporter covering the Dallas Police Department and Dallas Fire-Rescue. He grew up in Granbury and studied journalism at Texas State University. Before joining The News, he reported for the Austin American-Statesman and the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. He can be reached at 361-239-6527 and on Signal at crogers.95.
This story, originally published in The Dallas Morning News, is reprinted as part of a collaborative partnership between The Dallas Morning News and Texas Metro News. The partnership seeks to boost coverage of Dallas’ communities of color, particularly in southern Dallas.
