We still don't have the full details on this weekend's mass shooting outside Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, but we are beginning to put together some of the pieces.
Authorities released the names of the firefighters who were murdered:
I want to take a moment for you to get to know these two heroes before I say anything about the perp. They are the ones who should be remembered.
From local station WBALTV 11:
Frank Harwood, 42
A member of Kootenai County Fire and Rescue for 17 years, Harwood was married and had two children, Chief Christopher Way said.
Harwood was also a former Army National Guard combat engineer, Way said.
'Chief Harwood was a leader in our organization. He did an amazing job. He was a shift commander and he was well respected by his shift,' Way said Monday. 'This loss is felt by so many, including all of the members of his shift.'
John Morrison, 52
Morrison served with the Coeur d'Alene Fire Department for more than 28 years and moved up the ranks in his department from firefighter to battalion chief, Greif said.
'These guys were hard workers,' said Gabe Eckert, President of the Coeur d'Alene Firefighter's union. 'They loved their families.'
Eckert shared his final memory with Morrison during Monday's news conference, recalling a time when the pair smoked cigars during a rare lull at the fire station.
'We talked about being better fathers, we talked about being better leaders, talked about being better firefighters,' Eckert said.
'I just want to say I am so incredibly grateful that that gets to be my last memory with him.'
Dave Tysdal, 47, was the third victim of the shooting. He has been fighting for his life throughout two surgeries and is still in critical condition, though he has been able to open his eyes. He has served as an engineer with the Coeur d'Alene Fire Department for 23 years.
Now we get to the perp.
When we talk about these evil clowns, understand that we aren't glorifying them. Sharing their names is only important to understanding the context of what darkness drove them to do unspeakable things.
To that end:
Wait, a young man obsessed with "My Little Pony," with the beginnings of a furry fetish, became an unhinged mass shooter?
The media is already hard at work trying to spin the narrative a certain way. 👇
The fact that the guy was likely devolving into sexual degeneracy fueled by sissy porn/anime and terminally-online anarchism isn't important to the media.
They have a narrative to spin.
'My good friend saw drawings of swastikas and guns in his notebook,' Standley said. 'We were all pretty scared of him.'
Dieter Denen, who attended elementary, middle, and high schools with Roley, also remembered the swastika-drawing incident. Denen said he always thought Roley's comments and activity were just the actions of a 'kid being edgy.'
There were all sorts of punk rockers in the 1980s who wore swastikas to be "edgy." They didn't murder firefighters.
But I don't think USA Today wants you asking what changed in the societal formula.
'Everybody just thought he was weird,' Standley said. 'He was also obsessed with guns,' Standley said.
Again, the majority of young men like guns. Exactly one of them lured in firefighters to shoot at them on a mountain.
Roley's motives are still unclear. Police say there was no manifesto. He was a transient who apparently came from a divorced/broken home (something else the media doesn't want us to talk about). Until last year, he reportedly lived in Arizona with his mother and stepfather, who are both outdoor enthusiasts and archers.
The libs have been very quick to note that his mom and stepdad like Trump, because of course.
Unlike the libs, we're going to actually look at the whole picture here.
The Associated Press says the 20-year-old once wanted to be a firefighter.
Roley had once aspired to be a firefighter and had only a handful of minor contacts with area police, [Kootenai County Sheriff Bob] Norris said. A motive was still unknown, he said.
CNN reports that his grandfather said the same about Roley's aspirations:
Roley's grandfather, Dale Roley, told CNN his 20-year-old grandson came from a family of arborists and had been working in the tree service industry while trying to figure out his career path.
Police say Wess Roley opened fire on the first responders from a tree, citing extensive experience climbing with his family. His motive remains unknown - and no manifesto has been found.
'He wanted to be a fireman - he was doing tree work and he wanted to be a fireman in the forest,' Dale Roley said. 'As far as I know, he was actually pursuing it.'
On Facebook, people tracked down a post from his mother, Heather, that said Roley was moving to Idaho to work for his father, Jason Roley.
Jason Roley is reportedly an Army veteran who served as a Cavalry Scout.
This is reportedly his Instagram account, which shows him in Afghanistan.
He's also an avid biker who enjoys the horror genre and posted about various books/films, like the Necromicon from HP Lovecraft.
(Notice the same tattoos on the hand here, which spell Wess," but the last two letters look like "88" so libs say he's a Nazi)
Some left-wing accounts are, again, trying to use this as proof that the shooter was a church-going TPUSA member or something. One woman named Karen (can't make it up), even posted on Facebook that we "might deduct that Wess was primed for hate" because his parents are perceived as right-wing.
But again, context goes deeper than social media posts. There are many questions surrounding the past year or so of the shooter's life. According to multiple media reports, his family (presumably his father), live an hour away from where he'd been hanging out in Coeur d'Alene. Wess Roley had apparently lived in the area for the last year or so, but he mostly lived out of his car. At one point, he did have a roommate, who was concerned by his odd behavior, like shaving his head and flashing "gang symbols."
Hours before the shooting, Roley posted this picture to Instagram with the caption "I'm going hunting."
Authorities still don't understand why Roley was in the Coeur d'Alene area or why he targeted firefighters. The only potential lead that internet sleuths have is his obsession with gangs/cults/Nazi symbols and the infamous Aryan Nations cult in Coeur d'Alene.
As we reported previously, after the cult was bankrupted, local fire departments used their land and buildings to practice firefighting.
Many questions remain: Questions that the media won't dwell on.
What happened to cause Roley's family to split? How did they get from here:
To separate states with new spouses?
Why was their son living out of his car? Was anyone concerned about the neo-Nazi interest, let alone the types of online fetish communities he was starting to partake in?
We'll have to wait for those answers. In the meantime, people will sadly look at his furry posts or his Nazi posts and deduce what they want based on their own biases.
But I would encourage you to keep this as a reminder of how narratives form to help echo chambers make sense of the complexities of human sin.
It's the questions people don't want to discuss - about divorce, isolation, a society that rejects men, the darkest corners of the LGBT "community," SSRIs and other psych meds, and the creeps trying to manipulate our kids on the internet - that we should be talking about, not whose parents voted for whom.
Above all, honor the heroes.
P.S. Now check out our latest video 👇
