After the shootout at police headquarters, the suspect called 911 and gave a four- to five-minute rant, accusing of police of being to blame for him losing custody of a child, Brown said.

Police later found his number and called him back, eventually allowing SWAT officers to negotiate.

Officers pursued the van to the restaurant parking lot in Hutchins — roughly 13 miles southeast of the Dallas police headquarters — and the man opened a van door and again shot at police, injuring no one, Brown said.

After a gunfire exchange, police called the man for negotiations.

Shortly after 4:30 a.m. (5:30 a.m. ET), police used a .50-caliber rifle to hit the engine block, disabling the van, Brown said, because the man on the phone had been increasingly hostile and agitated. Police didn’t want him to drive away and threaten anyone else, Brown said.

About a half hour later, SWAT snipers shot the man through the van’s front windshield, Brown said.

The man had become increasingly angry and made threats before cutting off the negotiations, the chief said.

The suspect claimed that the van contained C-4 plastic explosives, according to Brown.

“They (SWAT officers) made the call, and I believe it’s the right call … to stop his violence,” Brown said.

Authorities found at least two more pipe bombs in the van, police said.

Video from CNN affiliate KTVT showed an explosion near the van, after police said they would use “an explosive water charge” to neutralize any explosives inside.

Early Saturday afternoon, KTVT footage showed the van was on fire. “During intentional detonation of susp(ect) ordnance, susp(ect) van caught fire and rounds are going off inside,” Dallas police tweeted. Officer almost tripped on bomb, ‘wouldn’t have survived’ Back outside headquarters, police found at least one package of pipe bombs. It was set to detonate upon touch, Brown said. “(An officer), during the searching, almost tripped over it. If he had touched it, he wouldn’t have survived,” Brown said. The package exploded when a bomb-squad robot tried to move it Saturday morning, police said. Dallas police posted a tweet showing that vehicles were damaged in the blast. Former Marine captured video The crackling sound of the Dallas shootout got the attention of Birt, the ex-Marine who lives across the street from the police headquarters with his wife. “We heard loud noises, my wife asked if I thought they were shots,” he said. “I went over to the window and put one of them up. And we heard more shots being fired, and I turned to my wife and said, ‘Yeah, that’s definitely gunfire.'”

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He got his cell phone and recorded video. After the van fled, police informed him and his wife that they and others to evacuate the building.

Dallas police said the complex’s residents might have to stay away for hours, since officers needed to determine whether more bombs were planted in the area.

As for the suspect, investigators have no reason to believe the man had “any nexus to terrorism,” Brown said.

Investigators are looking into whether a van sold in Newnan, Georgia, on eBay last week may be the van used in the Dallas attack, a source familiar with the investigation said. They are investigating, among other things, who may have purchased the vehicle.

Witnesses initially indicated up to four people attacked the Dallas police building. But Brown said investigators concluded that only one person was involved and that witnesses were describing the same person at different times and locations.