On December 12, Gareth, Nathaniel and Stacey Train ambushed and killed two police officers and one of their neighbours on their property in Wieambilla, in the Western Downs Region of Queensland.
Back then Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, a former Queensland cop, said it was a domestic terrorist incident. I came to a similar conclusion in a column on December 14.
But nine days after the attack, Queensland deputy police commissioner Tracy Linford said the ambush by the Trains was not considered an act of domestic terrorism.
“We are certainly not classing it as a domestic terror event. At this point there’s nothing really to indicate that,” Linford said on December 21.
“What we can see is sentiment displayed by the three individuals – the three Train family members – that appears anti-government, anti-police, conspiracy theorist-type things.”
At a press conference on Thursday, Lindford said the QPS had come to a different view.
“Specialist teams have analysed an extensive amount of evidential material including diaries, books and notes located at the scene, phone messages, emails, social media posts, witness statements and body-worn camera footage,” she said.
“This information provides more clarity as to the motivation behind the incident than what was known in the days after the event.
“We now know that the offenders executed a religiously motivated terrorist attack.
“(The Trains) were motivated by a Christian extremist ideology and subscribed to the broad Christian fundamentalist belief system known as Premillennialism.”
This led to a flurry of confused reporting and analysis in evening news bulletins. Is there a theologist in the house?
Premillennialism is a sweeping term that covers a branch of Christianity that believes in the physical return of Christ to Earth based on a literal interpretation of The Book of Revelations. In that branch sit benign groups such as Seventh Day Adventists, Anabaptists, and certain, but by no means all, elements of the evangelist movement.
Premillennialism is not a dangerous ideology. It may seem odd to a lot of people, but it holds no particular threat to society.
The term ‘Christian extremist ideology’ was also used by the deputy commissioner. Lindford cited the “Waco Massacre” as an example of Christian extremism.
The siege at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas in 1993 began after officers from the federal agency, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms executed a search warrant on the property led by the sect’s leader, David Koresh. Four ATF agents were shot dead, 16 were wounded and six Branch Davidians died in the raid. The FBI took control, and the property was besieged for seven weeks until armoured vehicles entered the property, firing tear gas and setting fire to buildings. 76 of the 85 Branch Davidian members in the compound died in the fiery denouement.
Branch Davidian is an Adventist sect. Adventism is a protestant movement that is premillennial and believes in the imminent return of Christ. Koresh essentially appropriated the Branch Davidian sect and turned it into a cult with himself as supreme leader. By the time the ATF raided the property, Koresh had ordered members on the compound to refer to themselves not as Branch Davidians but as “students of the Seven Seals”. The opening of the seals is referred to in The Book of Revelations as the beginning of the Apocalypse.
Gareth Train identified as a Christian conservative which is patently untrue. Conservatives don’t take up arms against the police.
Deputy commissioner Lindford said there was no indication the Trains were linked to the sovereign citizen movement.
What is certain is that the Trains subscribed to a rag bag collection of conspiracy theories associated with the pandemic and a raft of those that pre-date it, including the dangerous nonsense that the Port Arthur Massacre was a false flag event designed to part the citizenry from their firearms.
“If you are a conservative, anti-vaxx, freedom lover, protester, common law, conspiracy talker, alternative news, independent critical thinker, truther, Christian, patriot etc etc expect a visit from these hammers,” Gareth Train wrote over a year ago.
Therein is a sign of dangerous militancy towards police. The mention of “common law” is similarly significant and shows some form of connection to what is loosely called sovereign citizenry.
The Trains were not card carrying members of the sovereign citizen movement because there is no such thing. It is amorphous and is more properly described as pseudo-law promoted by influencers to provide a false legal framework that informs its adherents that not only are the state’s laws invalid, but those who seek to enforce them are the enemy.
The investigation is continuing, and a coronial inquest will be held at some point in the future.
The use of the term premillennial or Christian extremist may be accurate to a point. What is missing is that fundamentalist religious fervour – be it Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, animist or atheist – combined with self-isolation and echo chamber driven violent ideation promoting a perspective that the state and its agencies are adversaries to be disposed of, is creating an environment of lone wolf domestic terrorism in Australia or autonomous terror cells, as the police prefer to call them.
What has not been addressed to date is the danger the Trains posed to police and why at command level, four young police officers were sent to the Train’s property with just their sidearms to defend themselves.
What should have been known at senior level within the QPS was that the Trains possessed firearms and that one of their number at least had made threats to police.
“I have directed law enforcement to leave my premises over the last 20 years, having no reason or grounds, and at times have also asked them to remove their hands from their weapons or pull their pistols and whistle Dixie. Fortunately for me they have all been cowards,” Train wrote in 2021.
It is clear there had been little or no intelligence analysis of the Trains by our national security agencies. Gareth Train posted frequently, often with violent anti-police rhetoric. A search of his posts would have taken minutes to reveal the four young police officers were potentially entering hellfire.
The more important question is not just what national security agencies should have known before the attack, but what are they doing now?
More Coverage
Post the pandemic, how’s your Covid?
The pandemic has faded, but let’s not forget about Covid.
First Nations’ right to wealth over welfare
For too long, Indigenous economic policy has been built on the false premise that our people must choose between our rights to traditional lands and culture and our right to participate in and contribute to the nation’s economy.