A Case Of Mistaken Identity Turned This HBCU Alum Into Target

Micah David Johnson, a graduate of historically black Huston-Tillotson University in Austin, and also a member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc., spoke with Rolling Out about being wrongly identified as a suspect in the deadly Dallas ambush that left five police officers dead and six others wounded on July 8. Some highlights of the interview are below.

If he received an apology from the freelance journalist who falsely accused him:

“Last night before I went to bed I checked and basically he had been apologizing all day. My cousin went to high school with the actual shooter, so she was like you’re trying to ruin my family’s reputation and that he could get someone hurt. I tweeted him and told him that was a picture of me and all he said was that he had been apologizing all day. He was saying everybody was [perpetuating] my image by posting and sharing my picture on social media. Granted that’s a good point but I don’t know who [had] seen the picture, in the city or in the nation. Just because he deleted the picture, didn’t mean that the damage hadn’t already been done.”

If he has any comments for those who have been misinformed about him:

I would like to tell them that my name is Micah David Johnson and not Micah Xavier Johnson. I am a proud, young Black man, [who is] a graduate of Huston-Tillotson University and Shepherd University. I am a compassionate man who wants to bridge the gap [between] people.

Johnson also discussed where he was the night the attack took place, when he first realized his face was being circulated across social media, his hopes moving forward and more. Head over to Rolling Out to read the entire interview.