The Dallas Immigration Facility Shooting: Uncovering the Truth
The parents of the 29-year-old gunman who opened fire on a Dallas immigration facility in September told police their son was “completely normal” before he moved to Washington state and returned home several years ago believing he had radiation sickness, according to newly released records.
Joshua Jahn had begun wearing cotton gloves to avoid contact with plastic and practiced target shooting with a newly purchased rifle in Oklahoma a month before the deadly rooftop attack on a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building, according to a report written by a Fairview Police Department officer.
Jahn killed two detainees and wounded another before taking his own life in the Sept. 24 shooting.
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The records, obtained by The Associated Press through an open records request, reveal no clues about what may have motivated the attack. Federal authorities said previously that Jahn wrote “ANTI-ICE” on a bullet and left handwritten notes indicating he wanted to ambush and terrorize ICE agents.
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The Investigation Unfolds
The new records show that on the day of the shooting, Jahn’s parents told the FBI he would “occasionally discuss current events” with his mother but rarely engaged in conversations. His parents said he was a “loner” who was “obsessed” with artificial intelligence technology.
The parents, Andrew and Sharon Jahn, did not immediately respond Monday to text and phone messages from the AP.
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The documents portray Jahn as an unemployed, friendless young man who had withdrawn into playing computer games in his bedroom at his parents’ home in a Dallas suburb. Jahn was not diagnosed with or treated for any mental or physical disorders, his parents said.
Neither the police nor FBI immediately responded to a request for comment. The FBI said only that because of the government shutdown it was focused on national security, violations of federal law, and essential public safety functions.
A Change in Behavior
Jahn had been “completely normal” until he moved back from Washington state in the past five years, his parents said.
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He had previously taken classes at a Texas community college on and off for years, before driving across the country to answer an online advertisement for a seasonal job harvesting marijuana at a legal cannabis farm in Washington. Jahn appeared directionless and slept in his car for months, the farm’s owner Ryan Sanderson previously told the AP.
Candles were lighted during a vigil for the ICE shooting victims at City Hall in Dallas, Texas, Friday, October 3, 2025.
Anja Schlein / Special Contributor
After returning from Washington because he could not retain a job, Jahn’s parents told the FBI he believed he was “allergic to plastic” and sought to avoid direct skin contact with the material. The county where he worked in Washington state was one of the sites for the secret Manhattan Project to develop atomic bombs. And they said their son became convinced that while in Washington, he had been “exposed to radiation from a nearby facility and was suffering from radiation sickness.”
Photographs from the scene of the shooting show a car affixed with a map depicting radioactive fallout in the U.S.
Records suggest
