So the other day a garden variety Turner Diaries survivalist made that faint snapping sound that you hear whenever one of them gets the uncontrollable urge to consummate his relationship with his guns. This one dressed up like a twelve year old playing Rambo and shot a couple of cops in Pennsylvania (warning: autoplay ad). In his story I noticed something odd between the lines.
Eric Matthew Frein loved guns and war. He read about survivalist skills, but lived with his parents and drove their Jeep Cherokee the last two years.
The 31-year-old suspect in the Friday murder of state police Cpl. Bryon K. Dickson II, 38, and serious wounding of Trooper Alex T. Douglass, 31, learned to shoot from his father, a retired Army major with 28 years of service.
The father, Eugene Michael Frein, 64, told state police his son was a better marksman than he and someone who “doesn’t miss.”
[…] State Police Commissioner Frank Noonan described Frein as someone with “a lot of training” as a “survivalist,” which is someone who can live by his wits on his own outdoors. […] “He has made statements about wanting to kill law enforcement officers and also to commit mass acts of murder,” he said. “What his reasons are, we don’t know, but he has very strong feelings about law enforcement and seems to be very angry with a lot of things that are going on in our society.”
The guy’s dad taught his kid everything he knows about killing and survival. He lives in dad’s home, grows increasingly insane, talks all the time about killing and murder. Then one day the kid disappears in the family jeep with camo paint and a sniper bible, dad’s AK47 and a scoped high-powered rifle. Soon after that someone sniped a couple of local cops in exactly the way that junior had practiced and talked about and whoever shot them used the caliber of rifle that junior took.
Eric Frein drove off with his Most Dangerous Game play set and (presumably) never came back, yet for some reason the cops only heard about him three days after the shooting when someone found the family jeep in a retaining pond. As a parent I get that you don’t necessarily want to point the cops towards your own kid, particularly when they have less than the usual interest in taking the suspect alive. But.
E. Michael Frein, the suspect’s father, told troopers he is a retired U.S. Army Major and had trained his son in shooting skills, adding that his son, who had been a member 0f the high school rifle team, “doesn’t miss.”
In the absence of any other public statement, the only message we have from from E. Michael Frein sounds kind of proud of his son. This is a tough time for a parent but I might suggest at the very least making a public appeal for Eric to turn himself in. Imagining as a parent would do that the kid still might be innocent, a message like that could save his life.
jl
I was wondering about who shot those two cops. I hate to say it, but my hunch turned out to be correct.
When will right-wing mainly White terrorism be publicly recognized as a problem in this country.
Call me a silly liberal, but even though I have a lot of problem with how the police do their work, and think there are a lot of bad cops who need serious retraining and maybe change or careers, and many of them deserve legal sanctions for the shit they pull, but I do not think shooting random cops doing random things in their daily routines is good policy.
But, then I am a silly self-loathing liberal who is ‘soft’; hates humanity, and unrealistic, and a loser, as per Rushbo, obvs.
Ruckus
@jl:
Didn’t the DOJ try to call white supremest groups and militia groups, terrorist groups a few years ago(after the current president was sworn in) and the howling was non stop and very vitriolic?
This of course proved that they were exactly who we (and the DOJ) thought they are.
The Dangerman
@jl:
If he had beheaded the police officer on video, we might have had a chance; as it is, not so much.
Anyway, this will probably have the same ending as Shane Miller up in the Redwoods; he was basically cornered and ate a bullet. It’ll make the news for one night while we battle ISIS for months and years.
jayboat
Excellent observation, Tom. Proud dad is proud. Wonder what channel the teevee is tuned to in the Frein house?
Methinks this one will not end well, or I should say it will get worse before it ends, as Junior’s ‘survival’ skills are put to the test.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
I got the same vibe from the senior Frein’s statement that you did. I also suspect many of us had a similar profile to jl’s about what kind of background the killer had. It’s not terrorism if you are white – and right wing; a leftish leaner will not be allowed nearly the leeway. And added melanin, well, we all know where that gets you.
MoeLarryAndJesus
Sounds like the father should be sharing a cage with his batshit crazy son.
jl
@Ruckus: @The Dangerman: Yes and yes.
I wonder if Rush and Beck and those other reactionary loons would say that I hate America because my liberal pieities render random cop killing objectionable.
Edit: I will check Fox News, they will probably cover that angle of liberal perfidy first.
Tim F.
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Yep, it seems like the people hunting and murdering cops are all white sovereign citizens on the right fringe of Glenn Beck’s fan base. Aside from outright murders like Frein or that ridiculous assault in Cumming, GA you have unbelievably creepy behavior like this.
Better pull over some more black people.
JPL
Why go after the state police though?
Tommy
@MoeLarryAndJesus: Agreed. I go to family events where folks are far, far right. A kid that can there that can put a bullet on target from hundred of meters. I am not worried in the least the he will ever harm anybody.
The Dangerman
@Tim F.:
Pffft; I was told yesterday in a thread (by Rafer, IIRC) that being a police officer is comparatively safe and, besides, they are well paid.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Tommy: ?????
Lee Rudolph
I’m waiting for more details to come out about this fine upstanding family.
WTF?
Tim F.
@Lee Rudolph: It’s New Hampshire. Some people take ‘live free or die’ very seriously up there.
Tommy
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): I hate guns. Hate them. I don’t know why anybody would want one. I just noted I know somebody that loves guns. Appears to respect them.
Ripley
So, residing with your parents at age 31 constitutes “someone who can live by his wits on his own…”. Okay then.
StringOnAStick
I had suspected it was righty sovereign citizen-ish when I first heard about it, and I’m a bit ashamed about that. Then again, recent experience suggests that when LEO’s are shot while not performing official duties, a winger nutjob is the first place you should look.
This guy’s dad sounds like such a fine upstanding defender of democracy, no?
Marc
These are the dots I’m most interested in connecting:
I mean, it was probably birth control coverage and voter suppression that set him off, right? Both Sides!
JPL
@efgoldman: I would have thought that he would have attacked city hall first but I understand your explanation.
trollhattan
@Lee Rudolph: @Tim F.: The Palins are totally going to sue them for intellectual property theft. [Please place “intellectual” in air quotes when reading.]
jl
@efgoldman: What the right wing loons really need to keep an eye out for. is the really dangerous mortal enemy, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, especially the non-uniformed branches. We are doomed, you know, and that is where it will come from. Every right thinking person knows this but cannot admit it, even to themselves.
Edit: they can do math really good, and a lot of them can shoot really good too! Most of them walk among us, undetected, undetectable. Need one o’ them TV mystery action shows on them to entertain us while we await our fates.
JPL
@jl: Well thanks for that info. My neighbor works for the postal service.
burnspbesq
@jl:
Don’t forget about the Criminal Investigation Division of the IRS.
jl
@JPL: No dude, I am talking about the US post office police force, not the postal workers. They are different things.Anyway, been no trolls recently, and no one reads this blog anyway.
mellowjohn
he ” loved guns and war.” his father was a retired major.
i don’t suppose it ever occurred to this bozo to enlist.
Mike in NC
@jl: Hey, you sound like one of those people Andrew Sullivan once warned about: the decadent left, in their enclaves on the coasts!
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Tommy: Some people hunt because they need the meat for food. Just one example. Not everyone lives your life.
jl
@burnspbesq: And BLM, park rangers, and game wardens. See those little ads in weirdo pulp newspapers and magazine that say ‘protect wildlife, arrest violators’, that is code, you know.
Aw, shit, what difference does it make. These loons get a wild hair up their ass, they come out and shoot anybody don’t look just like them. That would include random nobodies like us, too. It is scary, but I admit, still relatively rare, but getting less rare.
But is not counting foiled plots to blow up stuff that appear in the news a couple of times a year. Typically, these right wing loons are not defective fools who are, (what’s the term or art that is used?), tricked into talking about it by some FBI people and incapable of doing anything by themselves.
Villago Delenda Est
@MoeLarryAndJesus: After he’s been stripped of his pension.
Mike in NC
@Lee Rudolph: Wow, what a blast from the past. As kids back in the 60’s, our parents in Boston took us every summer to Canobie Lake Park, Santa’s Village, Six Gun City, and many other attractions in New Hampshire. How many of them even still exist?
mtmofo
On tonight’s CBS News they reported on this loon. Apparently, he liked to engage in ‘war games’ dressed in ‘replica Eastern European military uniforms’. Also, too, he was an extra in a coupla short films of the same genre.
Felonius Monk
Me thinks the apple did not fall very far from the tree — kid was probably nuts enough to do what Dad probably always complained about.
Ol'Froth
Apparently, this guy liked to pretend to be a soldier, but was far too chicken shit to actually enlist.
sacrablue
@Ol’Froth: My guess is that he tried to enlist, but was rejected.
JustRuss
@Felonius Monk: Don’t be too quick to judge. I have a relative who pretty much did the same thing, he was just deranged, and his dad was a great guy. Possibly the “rarely misses” comment was meant as a warning to the cops.
On the other hand, it sounds like this guy has been off his nut for some time but dad couldn’t be bothered to secure his weapons, so there’s that.
Culture of Truth
Pretty complimentary stuff for a guy who shot two cops. Oh, right, no tea or skittles or cigars.
FlipYrWhig
@jl: were you looking for the word “entrapment”?
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@sacrablue: IIRC Tim McVey’s bitterness started when he flunked out of the Special Forces Q Course. In the real world, there is no shame in this; being selected to attend is a mark of being a damned good soldier. For McVey, it was something different.
trollhattan
Has anybody heard from Florida Man recently?
Uh, “happy birthday?”
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@trollhattan: Was there a conversation in classical Latin as well?
catclub
We will know that ISIS understands our society when they promise to send sniper teams like the DC shooters to the US.
A little cash, a big beater sedan, and a rifle, and they shut down vast sections of Maryland and DC with random sniping.
Every Muslim young man in the US would find himself in protective custody – aka internment camp.
Instead those bozos want to repeat the WTC, or something else big and hard to do. No need.
Violet
They showed this guy’s sister on TV tonight. She was in the driveway getting into her car. Her statement said he’s “not a psycho” and he’s still human and has feelings.
trollhattan
@Violet: Cheese, it’s “his feelings” I’m most worried about.
catclub
@Ol’Froth:
Or too crazy for the recruiters to accept him.
Eric U.
it’s acutally a bit of a trick to retire as a major. I suppose a prior-enlisted type could do it without anything hinky going on, but if you start out as an officer, it’s pretty much never done. The real losers retire as Lt Colonels, not as majors. My dad (enlisted during WWII) claims he told a Major that Major was the most useless rank. Which is true, there is no job for a Major to do in either the Army or the Air Force.
BubbaDave
The fact that he’s 31 and living with his parents suggests he may have some other issues that make him unemployable for organizations with lower standards than the US military…
jl
@FlipYrWhig: yes, thank you. Senior moment I guess (uh oh, but I am not near a Senior…) If can figure out to to effing find Balloon-Juice blog tomorrow on the computer, I guess I will be lucky.
jl
@Violet: Lots of ‘psychos’ out there, and they never kill anyone. So, I am very sorry for her that a loved-one is involved, but…
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Eric U.: It really depends on when you served. Prior enlisted service also can come into play.
Majors are generally staff officers and battalion XOs – if you want to call that useless, feel free. I’ll think you are wrong.
Gex
@Violet: Wonder what she thinks of Mike Brown. No, I don’t really want to know. I can guess though.
Mike in NC
@efgoldman: Living in Newport, RI for four years in the late 80s, I got to know Fall River and New Bedford pretty well. But the wife’s dad was born in Fall River, so I have to keep quiet about what a semi-armpit it was. (Tonight being our 20th anniversary and all.)
Eric U.
@jl: I have close relatives that are what I consider kookoobanananuts but I couldnt’ defend them if they started killing cops. Fortunately they wouldn’t know which end of a gun dispenses death and which end is the one you hold in your hand. I have seen people say that cops need to be in fear of the citizenry, but really they need to be in fear of due process. People shooting at them is what they are afraid of now, which is, for the most part, pretty ridiculous. To the extent that right wing nuts are acutally out there offing cops, that is the bad thing for those of us that don’t want to live in fear of the people that we are paying to protect us from criminals.
Lynn Dee
Twenty-eight years and he retired a major? Hmm. There’s a story there somewhere.
Eric U.
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): I’m not really up on military promotion since it doesn’t concern me any more, but typically people make major at 11 years, and that means they would be a major for 9 years before retirement if they don’t make ltcol. Not done very often. There are a lot of prior enlisted that retire as Captains, I’m sure that they also retire as Majors. I’m guessing that the fact that the father in this case retired as a Major means that he is prior enlisted, and there is no shame at that at all, it’s just that it sounded weird to me even before the fact that he was proud of the fact that his son killed some state policemen.
@Lynn Dee: @Lynn Dee: missed the 28 years part, there must have been some reserve time or prior enlistment. I don’t really remember when up or out was instituted, but I don’t think there are too many people that served before that policy that are still alive
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Lynn Dee: Reserve time.
Violet
@jl: @Gex: To be fair, she’s only 18 and sounded a bit in shock. Full quote:
and
It’s probably pretty overwhelming for her.
Villago Delenda Est
@Eric U.: As my DIVARTY commander once said, at a promotion ceremony, “major” is associated with things like “fuckups”, “disasters”, “catastrophes”. LTC is not so associated.
Mike in NC
@Eric U.: You can retire from the active duty military as an O-4 (Major or Lieutenant Commander) after 20+ years in most cases only if you seriously fuck up.
Case I knew best was where my department head (ship’s Chief Engineer) slacked off to the point where we failed a post-operational evaluation after a major shipyard overhaul because he was too involved in personal affairs (i.e., an ugly divorce).
The CO promised that he’d never get another promotion and 15 years later he was still an O-4 hanging around at Dam Neck, VA while working part time for AMWAY.
different-church-lady
@efgoldman: What? No love for Battleship Cove?
Eric U.
@Villago Delenda Est: it’s pretty much required that you serve as a major between the time that you are a captain and the time that you become a LtCol. The trick is to arrange to do something that appears to be useful. I suffer from a lack of imagination, and quit as a captain. I will admit that I don’t really have a personality that was fit for military duty.
But I am sure I’m not alone in thinking that something is weird when I hear, “retired Major” OTOH, I figure that a lot of really competent people have retired as LtCol. There is no shame in that at all, the shame is on the other side where someone that was pretty good never got promoted. I always figured that that was probably the best I could do for myself and didn’t really want to go through with it and quit when they offered incentives to do so. I’m just introverted enough and not good at self-promotion that I was never going to end up at a higher rank anyway, regardless of merit.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Eric U.: There was a time in the mid to late ’80s when retiring as a Major was a reasonable thing.
Mike in NC
@Eric U.: I worked on an IT project for Computer Sciences Corporation in Falls Church, VA in the mid-90s. Some genius decided to hire several retired Army O-5s to manage the project. The worst of the bunch used to walk around the office and tell people to roll down their shirt sleeves or get a shave or trim their fucking fingernails. One time he saw me reading a newspaper before lunch hour and after that all newspapers were banned from the office.
Pretty soon most people found other jobs but no doubt the beatings continued until morale improved.
Eric U.
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): If you say so, but I was serving then and I don’t remember any examples of that happening in any of the Air Force organizations I served with. The aftermath of wars certainly skew the rank structure, so I imagine the effects of the Vietnam war lasted well into the ’80s.
Villago Delenda Est
@Eric U.: The other thing was the running joke that within the first week of getting the gold leaf (The 2LT of field grades!) you were supposed to report to the nearest military medical center for your field grade lobotomy.
Major is always the intermediate step from commanding a company to commanding a battalion, which almost always falls to LTCs. However, I was the XO (as a captain) of a company that was commanded, by MTOE, by a major. Strange fixed station signal thing. So there are majors in command positions, but those are are and branch specialized. Most majors as Omnes indicated are staff officers or XOs of battalions, a successful tour as a battalion XO is pretty much a prerequisite for commanding a battalion as a LTC.
This all being in the Army, of course, where my experience lies.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Eric U.: The Air Force is its own thing. And should be abolished. My experience is as an army officer. Do you want to suggest that I am lying? Just asking?
sm*t cl*de
Possibly the “rarely misses” comment was meant as a warning to the cops.
He’s pretty much advised them to kill his son from a safe distance.
Eric U.
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name):not at all, just doesn’t fit with my experience. Which I will admit is incomplete. I have pretty much come to the same conclusion about the Air Force. There was a time when I woudn’t have thought that I would be anti-Air Force, but the justification for a separate service has been weakening over the last couple of decades.
gian
@Violet:
a sign that someone who is depressed is ready to be suicidal is an improvement in energy and attitude. They’ve made the decision and are just waiting to execute.
it’s the reason the anti-depressant drugs include a suicide warning (I think) they work well enough to get people who might otherwise just be unable to get out of bed feeling good enough to kill themselves.
about three months is the one year from when a nephew did something just like that. (don’t know about the meds, but the cheerful attitude etc.) Not my area of education but my better half is an LCSW who has worked with depression and has had to involuntarily commit people
balconesfault
@Tim F.:
You have to remember that Austin, liberal as we are, is also the home of Alex Jones and Infowars.
balconesfault
@sm*t cl*de:
My thought too. Not sure if it was a conscious choice on his part, but SWAT teams will plan accordingly.
balconesfault
@Eric U.:
Hmm – my dad retired as a major back in the late 60’s. To get his promotion would have meant a desk tour in Vietnam … and he wanted no part of that. So instead he trained doctors for a few years and got out with his 25 years without having to spend time over there.
Shakezula
#NotAllBasementDwellingAdultMen
satby
@Mike in NC: The beatings have continued to the present day. That’s who laid me off last December, and my former colleagues say it’s worse than ever. The only thing I miss is the salary.
Cermet
@sm*t cl*de: Really? You really think that is what the very persons FATHER is saying – kill my son? Please; the father is saying it couldn’t have been his son BECAUSE his son never misses any target with a gun and since one cop wasn’t killed – i.e. a miss – couldn’t have possibly been his son. Nut case still, and the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
evodevo
@jl: You are more correct than you know. I’m a mail carrier out in the countryside, and we all are acutely aware that postal workers are the only federal employees that most people regularly come into contact with. When the nutjob is looking for a gubmint employee to kill, we are first in line. AND we are not allowed to carry. Anything. Even a pocket knife. (Well, that’s because we might go postal, but, still ….)
AxelFoley
@Culture of Truth:
Beat me to it.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Lynn Dee: Isn’t it up or out in the military? And don’t officer’s get retired one rank higher?
Woodrowfan
@Tim F.:
According to the article they’re from Vermont. (shrug) but yeah, i am picturing them living in a cabin in the woods with a homemade “NO TRESSPASING! (sic) ” sign on every tree.
Eric U.
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: no. Officers retire at their permanent rank. What you are thinking about is higher ranking officers that are serving at a higher rank than their permanent rank, i.e. generals. They often get promoted to that rank after they retire. Not going to say this has never happened to someone holding the rank of Major or Captain, but I don’t think it has. There was some real weirdness in ranks after WW1 and WW2, many officers that decided to stay in were reduced in rank.
BubbaDave
@Eric U.:
And there’s the distinction between Regular and Reserve officers (which evaporated in 2005, occasionally) — no, not officers in the Army Reserves, but Reserve officers in the regular Army…
prufrock
@Eric U.: My grandfather was a 27 year old Lt. Colonel commanding a battalion on Saipan in WWII. Given his commendations (silver star, twice among others), he apparently did a pretty good job. After the war? Back to Captain for you, sir.
That’s what happens when a 8 million strong army shrinks considerably. There just isn’t a need for battalion commanders who aren’t even thirty.
Paul in KY
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): I sorta had the impression he was intimating that it couldn’t be Junior, as he would have killed the person who survived.
Paul in KY
@Eric U.: Certainly, if you had no prior service & retired after 20 as a Major, you were passed over for promotion at least 2 times. Or you were busted down to Major at end of your career.
Paul in KY
@Eric U.: He must have prior enlisted time. They would not let you serve 28 years as an officer & only be a Major.
Another Holocene Human
Schizophrenia. Schizophrenia. Schizophrenia.
Another Holocene Human
@jl: Think “psychopath” not “psychotic”.
The nomenclature confounds the issue.
Arturo
…but lived with his parents and drove their Jeep Cherokee the last two years.
“survivalist,” which is someone who can live by his wits on his own outdoors.
How does that work? A survivalist who lives with his parents, how do you jive that together?
JoyfulA
@Paul in KY: He’s only 64, so would the lesser Bush’s great adventures have a bearing on his status?
Another Holocene Human
@gian: A good friend and I had a bipolar mutual acquaintance who was suicidal in her manic phases. At least you’ve explained this to me in a way that makes sense.
(A close friend of mine who was bipolar used to engage in attention-seeking stuff while manic, like streaking past a tv news truck, definitely did not want to kill himself, so it always confused me why this other woman was like that.)
meshellmabelle
Hey all. I’m from the area this is happening in. He actually wasn’t all GOP. And he wasn’t a survivalist. Anybody and everybody up this way is a hunter, hiker, able to primitive camp. We are more green than hill billy. I’m a woman and I went to states for archery. And my family is as left and pacifist as you get. I read Russian history and Literature too, and do revolutionary tour guiding, doesnt make me communistic, war mongering or any such thing. It makes me well rounded, intelligent and a lover of books, history, and nature. Just sayin’. Things people aren’t seeing in the news. The officer wounded in the pelvis was for all we’ve heard having an affair or making advances on his sister in law. Also from this side of the media I can tell you that saying ‘I’m going to kill that guy and his partner who did this’ is probably something any of us would say or think in this situation. We just wouldn’t ever act on it. The idea of taking that as he ‘targetting law enforcement and planning mass murder’ is actually based on no actual social media or proof. Eric Frein had a MySpace but no recent posts, and none that were stating these things. He doesn’t do social media really, so far as we can see up this way. Lastly, ‘this guys crazy for shooting someone, let’s shoot him’ is hypocritical. Either you are for or against violence. I say take him alive, give him his right to trial and counsel. When we start trying and convicting without due process and condoning media and police to do the same, you are condoning it across the board. Even for yourself.