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Deceased gunman who ambushed Idaho firefighters identified

Deceased gunman who ambushed Idaho firefighters identified

UPIa day ago
July 1 (UPI) -- Authorities in northwestern Idaho have identified the deceased gunman who ambushed firefighters responding to a blaze he set as 20-year-old Wes Roley.
Kootenai County Sheriff Bob Norris made the announcement during a press conference Monday.
Roley is believed to be the gunman who set a wildfire Sunday afternoon on Canfield Mountain, east of Coeur d'Alene, and then opened fire on firefighters responding to the blaze. Two firefighters were killed and a third was injured.
The deceased firefighters were also identified Monday as John Morrison, battalion chief with the Coeur d'Alene Fire Department, and Frank Harwood, battalion chief with Kootenai County Fire and Rescue. David Tysdal, also with the Coeur d'Alene Fire Department, was seriously injured in the shooting and underwent surgery.
Roley was found dead near a firearm on Sunday, and Norris told reporters during the Monday press conference that they believe he died by a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The motive for the shooting is under investigation, with Norris adding that at one point, Roley had wanted to be a firefighter, though it was not clear if that had anything to do with the shooting.
"Also, we don't find that there's any nexus to any Islamic jihad, which is also being disseminated on social media. We don't find there's a nexus to that either," he said.
"We don't have any indication of any motive at this time. And we, you know, certainly we will continue to investigate that."
Norris added that Roley had some sort of "discussion" with the firefighters when they arrived on the scene concerning the suspect's vehicle and which is under investigation.
A shotgun was used in the shooting, and Norris said they are seeking to confirm if other weapons were also involved. He added that they believe that Roley opened fire on the firefighters from a position up in a tree.
Authorities on Sunday said they believe that Roley set the fire, with Norris stating Monday that he was found to be in possession of a flint starter that they think was used to ignite the blaze.
They also believe Roley was living in his vehicle at the time of the attack, though they have not yet conducted an inventory of the vehicle as responding deputies pushed it off an encampment during the incident to prevent him from fleeing down the mountain.
Though a criminal record has not been found, Roley has had five interactions with local authorities, but nothing serious. "Very, very minor in nature," Norris said, explaining that at least one was related to trespassing and some of the others were for welfare checks.
Roley was born in California, had previously lived in California, Arizona and Idaho and grew up in an arborist family, Norris said.
The fire was at 26 acres on Monday. No structures were currently threatened.
Kootenai County Fire and Rescue said the bodies of Morrison and Harwood will "return home" to Coeur d'Alene on Tuesday morning.
A procession of emergency vehicles is expected to leave the Spokane County Medical Examiner's Office at 10 a.m. local time.
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While tweaked somewhat to deal with a domestic incident (such as dealing with distraught parents during a school shooting), the Venn diagram for the two trainings was almost a circle. Indeed, the idea that responders to shooting incidents, whether armed or unarmed, should undergo TCCC training is an element of the 2013 Hartford Consensus. This was a kind of national throwing up of the hands that accepted that shootings could not be stopped, and shifted focus to a more effective response, recommending that responders adopt a tripartite mission when time is of the essence: 1) Stop the killing, 2) stop the dying, and 3) save as many as you can. The Hartford Consensus contains elements of a variety of mass casualty programs, including Federal Emergency Management Agency, emergency medical services protocols, advanced trauma life support, Stop the Bleed, and Tactical Emergency Casualty Care, the civilian equivalent of TCCC. 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But the most striking commonality was the way this training taught unarmed first responders to move with armed operators in the 'warm zone,' an area where the active shooter was not immediately present but where a shooting threat could still manifest. Rescue task force guidance stridently reinforced the lesson that unarmed civilian firefighters like me would be required to move in the warm zone to assist with all of the duties required above, necessarily placing us at risk of … well … getting shot. As a hedge against this possibility, law enforcement officers would be assigned to our contact team with the duty of protecting us and engaging any suspects who opened fire. As a targeting officer (a kind of tactical intelligence analyst) in Iraq, I was armed, but using that weapon was not my job. I carried it as a last resort. Instead, I relied on the 'hard operators' in my team to keep me safe, knowing that if they fell, I had at least a means of holing up and shooting it out with the enemy until the quick reaction force could extract me. Much of the training I received before deploying to Iraq centered on how I could move and integrate with hard operators in my team, staying out of their way until I was needed. This instruction reflects the reality of rising levels of violence directed at firefighters. There are the instances when we have to respond to active shooter incidents, but also, there are the times people shoot at or assault us, as happened in Coeur d'Alene. In 2023 Drexel University's Center for Firefighter Injury Research and Safety Trends noted a 69 percent increase in assaults on firefighters from 2021 to 2022 (from 350 to 593). Many of these incidents occur during medical calls, rather than fire responses. And this number may be an undercount, as FIRST looked only at those incidents reported in the media. I can personally attest that in the hypermasculine and stoic culture of the fire service, a minor assault that didn't result in injury or generate media attention could easily go unremarked on. Indeed, in the District of Columbia in 2023, the firefighters union complained of an increase in assaults against firefighters, describing the attacks as occurring 'fairly often.' The problem isn't confined to the United States. Three-quarters of German firefighters experienced some form of public violence during a response as of February of this year. A recent assault on a Canadian firefighter prompted changes to the criminal code to include firefighters and emergency medical services, and a small town in British Columbia authorized 15,000 Canadian dollars to purchase body armor for firefighters after an attack. While the impact of warfare is obviously a separate scenario, I would be remiss not to note the terrible toll Russia's invasion of Ukraine is taking on European firefighters. Numbers from the U.K. show that the figures are even worse for EMS responders, with whom firefighters usually work closely. The critical question is: why? The answer is complex, evolving, and desperately in need of attention. Spiraling distrust of institutions is an obvious culprit, and the tight bond between fire and police services, who often share resources, means that tensions in the rapport between the public and police are reflected on anyone showing up to a crisis with a uniform on. Then there's the increase in mental health–related calls, which frequently put firefighters in situations in which they are dealing with potentially unstable and reactive individuals like Roley, with the corresponding potential for violent outcomes. 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