Three people killed at ICE facility in Dallas

On Wednesday morning, the Dallas Police Department posted this message on X:

On September 24, 2025, at about 6:40 am, Dallas Police responded to an assist officer call in the 8100 block of North Stemmons Freeway. The preliminary investigation determined that a suspect opened fire at a government building from an adjacent building. Two people were transported to the hospital with gunshot wounds. One victim died at the scene. The suspect is deceased.

The shooting occurred at an US Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office. Three people died, including the gunman, who died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Two others were wounded, according to officials. An FBI agent reported that rounds found near the shooter, who was dead when police arrived, contained messages that were “anti-ICE in nature.”

However, the precise motive behind the shooting, or what the shooter was targeting, was not clear at this writing. No ICE officers were injured in the attack.

It is possible that the shooter knew the victims personally and was acting out of personal motives. It is also possible that the shooter targeted the ICE facility by mistake, perhaps intending to attack a different building or agency.

But the facts at hand make it likely that the shooter acted to protest ICE activities in arresting illegal immigrants. Large-scale protests against ICE have spanned the country this year, some of which have turned into street riots and physical altercations.

If this was the motive behind Wednesday’s shooting in Dallas, it is tragically ironic that the shooter was supposedly acting on behalf of ICE detainees but shot several detainees instead. By contrast, the people the shooter was apparently protesting were unharmed.

Why did Oswald shoot JFK?

When you watch mass protests and related violence these days, do you wonder what motivates people to act in such apparently illogical ways? The campus protests supporting Hamas after its October 7 invasion obviously have not changed Israel’s actions in response to the invasion. The person who allegedly murdered Charlie Kirk did not silence his message or his movement; to the contrary, far more people know of both than was true before the attack.

Even if the shooter in Dallas had successfully attacked ICE agents (assuming that was the motive), would ICE have stopped arresting illegal immigrants?

Some attackers apparently act simply to achieve notoriety for themselves. While we will never know conclusively the motive behind Lee Harvey Oswald’s assassination of President John F. Kennedy, for example, many historians believe he acted in large part out of a lack of self-esteem and desire for notoriety. John Hinckley told investigators that he shot President Ronald Reagan in 1981 to impress the actress Jodie Foster and that he had no ill will against Mr. Reagan.

But those who attempt to use violence to silence a message or change behavior do not succeed. In the long run, as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. famously noted, the arc of the moral universe “bends toward justice.”

Four reasons for violence

If violence is so counterproductive, then why do humans so often resort to it?

Anger is one obvious motive. When we feel that others have harmed us, we feel justified in harming them.

Impotence is another. Cain murdered Abel because he was angry with God, but could not murder God. People sometimes attack those they can because they cannot attack those they cannot.

A desire to “do something” is yet another. The shooter in Dallas, presuming they were attacking ICE, could not stop all its activities, but apparently thought they could at least stop what was happening in Dallas at that moment. Environmentalists who spike trees to harm loggers know that they cannot save all the trees, but think they can save some.

A sense of moral entitlement is still another. Those who resort to illegal violence often feel that they are above the law because their actions purportedly serve a “higher” purpose for which their actions are necessary.

“The heart is deceitful above all things”

The bottom line is that fallen people act like fallen people. There will therefore be illogical violence as long as the fallen world endures.

What we can do is take steps to ensure that we are part of the solution and not the problem.

• If you have not murdered someone but you hated them, Jesus says you did both, spiritually and psychologically (Matthew 5:21–22). The same is true for adultery and lust (vv. 27–28).

• If you have not stolen someone’s property but lied about them, you have stolen their reputation (cf. Exodus 20:15–16).

• If you have not slandered someone in public but you gossiped about them in private, you sinned against them in ways God knows and will judge (cf. 1 Peter 2:1; Psalm 101:5).

Because sin begins with desire that “gives birth” to actions that bring forth “death” (James 1:14–15), the biblical key to preventing violent actions is to prevent violent thoughts. And the key to changing our thoughts is changing our heart: our subconscious and subliminal nature that precedes and produces our rational activities.

The problem is, none of us can change our hearts. As the prophet asked, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).

“I will give you a new heart”

The good news is that there is One who can.

The Lord promises, “I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you” (Ezekiel 36:26). He does this when we make Christ our Lord and his Spirit takes up residence in our lives, making us his “temple” (1 Corinthians 3:16). He will then produce the “fruit” of the Spirit, manifesting the characteristics of Christ in and through our lives (Galatians 5:22–23; Romans 8:29).

One of these is “love,” the unconditional commitment to put the other person first and to choose their best even at our expense. The Spirit does this in every life that is fully submitted to him each day (Ephesians 5:18).

Imagine a world where the Holy Spirit was this free to replace violence with forgiveness and hatred with love. Now imagine your life as a catalyst for such a world.

Fyodor Dostoevsky noted,

“To love someone means to see him as God intended him.”

Including yourself.