The anti-ICE gunman who killed one migrant and wounded two others at a Dallas ICE facility on Wednesday was as soon as a pot-obsessed slacker who hustled marijuana from Washington again to his house state of Texas, based on his ex-boss.
Joshua Jahn, 29 — who fired from a rooftop at a busload of migrants escorted by federal brokers into the immigration facility earlier than turning the gun on himself — labored a short-lived job on a authorized hashish farm in Benton Metropolis in 2017, the place his ex-employer remembered him as a weed-loving drifter with little route or drive.
“He was all concerning the weed. He needed to be a part of the scene. He lived in his automotive whereas he helped,” Ryan Sanderson, 49, who runs Golden Leaf farm, advised The Publish.
“He was only a younger child. When the job was over, he drove again to Texas.”
Sanderson, who supervised Jahn throughout a three-week harvest season, mentioned the shooter had little curiosity in politics or something past pot.
“He would come to work. He didn’t say a complete lot. He wasn’t an distinctive employee by any stretch,” Sanderson mentioned.
“We by no means talked about politics or any of that type of stuff. No one did.”
Jahn was a part of a 15-person crew, “taking leaves off and listening to music” through the harvest.
“There are individuals who work, and there are individuals who undergo the motions. He was a kind of guys. He didn’t work that arduous, most likely as a result of he was too excessive,” the boss recalled.
“What I consider occurred is he was promoting weed after which he got here up right here to work within the weed trade as a result of he was all about it and that fizzled out,” he mentioned.
“Then he needed to go house. It wasn’t authorized in Texas. I perceive he labored at a photo voltaic plant. That’s kinda a 180, that’s a unclean, hardworking job….He most likely didn’t have any route, any work.”
Sanderson suspects Jahn might have had one other motive to enterprise all the way in which out to Washington for the momentary gig.
“I simply thought it was bizarre that somebody would drive all the way in which to Texas to work at a brief job. However now figuring out that he was promoting hashish down in Texas and bought in bother previous to developing right here, I’ve a way that his motive was to come back up right here and get weed,” Sanderson mentioned.
“The job was for a three-week harvest, after which I kinda felt unhealthy for him as a result of he needed to maintain working, however I didn’t have a whole lot of work. I stored him on for 3 extra months, looking for extra work for him,” he recalled.
“Ultimately, I couldn’t justify conserving him as a result of he wasn’t an all-star by any stretch.”
Jahn was additionally busted in 2015 for marijuana possession, earlier than he started engaged on the hashish farm.
Authorities are investigating the assault on the ICE processing heart in Dallas on Wednesday as a focused assault.
The phrases “Anti-ICE” had been scrawled on a stripper clip of ammo close to his physique, and his beat-up Toyota Corolla had a weird nuclear fallout map taped to the facet.
A handwritten be aware recovered by investigators additionally mentioned, “Hopefully this may give ICE brokers actual terror, to assume, ‘is there a sniper with AP [armor piercing] rounds on that roof?’”
The gunman is a registered impartial who voted within the Democratic main in 2020 and final forged a poll in 2024.
Jahn had expertise with firearms, his household mentioned.
Whereas the killer’s political motives stay beneath investigation, his mom, Sharon, posted a sequence of anti-gun rants on Fb, blasting Texas Republican lawmakers who supported the Second Modification.
A relative advised The Publish that Jahn was not a radical leftist and didn’t hate immigration brokers, regardless of the anti-ICE sentiment written on the unspent bullet and the be aware discovered by the FBI.
However again in 2017, Jahn didn’t appear out of the extraordinary, Sanderson mentioned.
“I assumed, ‘God, what occurred to him?’ He didn’t seem to be any person who would do one thing like that however you by no means know who individuals are,” he recalled after studying he was the gunman.
“Then one thing took a flip for the more severe as a result of he ballooned up in dimension, he gained a bunch of weight, most likely simply being depressing,” he added upon seeing his picture. “That’s simply my tackle it.”
“He was simply your typical 21-year-old who appreciated to smoke weed.”
