Inscribed shell casings in Dallas ICE shooting add to pattern of messaging in extremist attacks

Authorities are investigating a deadly shooting at a Dallas field office of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, where shell casings engraved with the words “ANTI-ICE” were recovered at the scene. The inscription marks what officials describe as the third high-profile attack in roughly a year in which ammunition bore a message intended to convey a motive or ideology.

Two prior incidents have shared similar footprints: in December 2024, after the shooting that killed UnitedHealthcare chief executive Brian Thompson, shell casings were found bearing the words “deny,” “defend” and “depose.” Earlier this month, in Utah, the shooting at a university event left conservative commentator Charlie Kirk dead; investigators said the suspect, Tyler Robinson, had etched references to obscure internet memes onto bullet casings recovered with the firearm. TIME’s analysis of the pattern notes the rising use of inscribed ammunition as a potential means of signaling intent beyond the immediate act of violence.

Experts say the practice of marking shell casings has deep historical roots but has rarely appeared with the public visibility of modern mass shootings. Dr. Richard K. Pumerantz, an expert witness in ammunition and shooting-scene reconstruction, notes that engraving shell casings goes back hundreds of years. He says sharpies and specialized engraving tools have long allowed shooters to identify their casings, mark reloading counts, or add personal touches. “Engraving shell casings goes back ‘hundreds of years,’” Pumerantz explains. “Sharpies are most commonly used to mark brass casings, though carbine-tipped or vibrating pens used for engraving metals are also easily accessible and don’t require any specialized background to use.” He adds that historically the practice was more about self-identification than sending a message to others.

But in the recent cases, Pumerantz argues, the inscriptions take on a different purpose: to leave a public, recoverable mark that can be interpreted as part of the perpetrator’s motive. “The fact that it's gotten notoriety now in murders,” he says, “wasn’t really for other people to see, really for them to just simply identify those as their shell casings.” He suggests the shooter may see the casings as a platform to express anger or frustration, a motion amplified by media coverage that makes the messages widely known and discussed. “It’s a way of leaving a memory, leaving a marker behind as a means of sending the message, knowing that it's going to be recovered by law enforcement.”

Joseph K. Young, a political violence expert at the University of Kentucky, describes engraved casings as a potential “mini-manifesto.” Yet he cautions that such messages can be hard to interpret, especially when assessing lone actors whose motives are shaped by a mix of online and offline influences. “Sometimes those messages aren't completely coherent and it's not totally clear what someone's trying to say,” Young says. “And that's challenging, both for investigators and scholars and observers … At some level, that's troubling, because then it's harder for us to understand where these messages are being sent and then where people are getting radicalized.”

Thomas Zeitzoff, a professor of criminology at American University, notes that the motives of radicalized lone actors are often unclear when the only artifacts left behind are brief inscriptions. He describes the phenomenon as a form of “weird salad bar extremism,” driven by broad online exposure to divergent ideologies rather than a single, coherent program. “The motive is not always going to be clear,” Zeitzoff says.

The ongoing Dallas investigation is part of a broader conversation about how messaging factors into high-profile violence. While investigators try to connect inscriptions to explicit aims, experts caution that the messages may reflect only a fragment of a suspect’s thinking and could complicate efforts to establish a clear, prosecutable motive. TIME notes that authorities face challenges in decoding what such markings truly signify and in identifying potential radicalization pathways when the messages are brief and ambiguous.

As officials continue to scrutinize the Dallas case alongside the earlier UnitedHealthcare and Kirk incidents, experts warn of the risk that copycats may imitate the tactic. Pumerantz emphasizes that the public nature of the messages, combined with intensive media coverage, could incentivize others to adopt similar markers in hopes of achieving notoriety. “I think you’re going to see a lot of copycats,” he says. “I think we're going to see a proliferation of marked casings in these types of situations.”

In the absence of a single, definitive motive, investigators will likely rely on a combination of forensic analysis, witness accounts, and digital traces to piece together the messages’ intent. The Dallas case underscores a broader challenge for law enforcement as political violence becomes increasingly infused with digital-age signals, memes, and rapidly shared narratives. Officials have not specified a published motive, and authorities cautioned that the inscriptions alone do not determine culpability without corroborating evidence. As the investigation unfolds, scholars and policymakers alike will be watching how such markings influence both public understanding of violent acts and the investigative process itself.