CORRECTION: When this story was written it was widely reported that several gunmen had targeted police officers in Dallas. It has now become clear that there was only one attacker, Micah Johnson, who appears to have acted alone. The story as published remains below.

FIVE US police officers were shot dead in central Dallas on Thursday night by at least four snipers who targeted them at an anti-racism protest.

Seven more officers and two protesters were hurt when the four opened fire with rifles just before 9pm.

Protest organiser Cory Hughes told NBC television that 2,000 people had joined the march against the killings of two black men by police in the previous two days.

In a strange twist, Mr Hughes’s brother Mark surrendered to police overnight after he was identified as a suspect. Police circulated a photo of Mark Hughes openly carrying a rifle on a previous march.

Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings confirmed that three suspects were in custody, one of whom he described as a black woman, and one was dead after a stand-off with police in a nearby car park.

The suspect Micah Johnson, who had refused to surrender, died of a gunshot wound. It was unclear whether he had been shot by police or taken his own life.

Police chief David Brown said that before his death, Mr Johnson said he was not a member of any group and had acted alone, adding that he was angry about police shootings of black men and “wanted to kill white people, especially white officers.”

Buzzfeed reporter Albert Samaha argued that Dallas had actually successfully reduced police brutality in recent years, with reports 64 per cent between 2009 and 2014.

Quinyetta McMillon, the mother of Alton Sterling who was shot by police in Baton Rouge in Louisiana on Tuesday, condemned the Dallas shootings. “Responding to violence with violence is not the answer,” she said.

Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton spoke out about the killing of black school cafeteria supervisor Philando Castile by police officer Jeronimo Yanez on Wednesday after being pulled over for a broken brake light.

“Would this have happened if those passengers would have been white? I don’t think it would have,” he said.

In Georgia a man was arrested after carrying out a drive-by shooting against a police officer in Roswell, just north of Atlanta. No-one was injured in the attack.