According to their father, the two Australian males who carried out the shooting that left six people dead were “obsessed” with weapons as children.
Police shot and murdered Nathaniel and Gareth Train, as well as Gareth’s wife Stacey, on Monday after they shot two police officers and a neighbor.
Police are looking into their possible involvement with conspiracy theories and whether they planned an ambush at the isolated location.
On Thursday, Minister of Home Affairs Clare O’Neil said it was likely that radicalization had been a factor.
“Radicalism is nothing new. Conspiracy theories, false information, and misinformation, however, are age-old issues that technology is accelerating into awful acts of violence, “She informed the House.
They are posing a fresh threat to our country’s security.
Ronald Train said his sons were not “monsters” but rather had “completely lost their way in life” since cutting off contact with their family 20 years ago. This was his first public statement following the shooting.
Mr. Train claimed in an exclusive interview with the local television program A Current Affair that the two had a history of expressing an interest in guns.
He added that “Gareth in particular was obsessed… Nathaniel to a lesser extent.”
Gareth, the eldest of the two brothers, was characterized by the father as a “difficult” child who was “extremely temperamental [and] very dominating,” but he said he couldn’t understand how his boys had ended up involved in such a “horrific” occurrence.
With two children who had been raised with particular ideas, Christian beliefs, Mr. Train remarked, “I just could not fathom how something like this could have occurred.”
He also mentioned how Stacey Train, 45, had left her first husband and the father of her children, Nathaniel, 46, for his brother Gareth, 47, which had taken him by surprise.
Police have stated that the trio used “several weapons,” although they have not yet specified which ones or given a reason for the attack.
At around 16:30 on Monday, police were searching a property in Wieambilla, which is 270 kilometers (168 miles) west of Brisbane, for Nathaniel Train, who had been reported missing.
Matthew Arnold and Rachel McCrow, two constables, were killed. The leader of the Queensland Police Union claimed that they were shot once instantly and then again in “execution-style.”
The fourth officer endured a long ordeal as the suspects tried to track her down and set fires to try and flush her out. A third officer was shot and hurt but managed to escape.
When neighbor Alan Dare, age 58, arrived at the scene because he thought a house was on fire, the suspects also killed him.
According to a number of media publications, Gareth Train appeared to have frequently posted to online discussion boards that supported conspiracies. He misrepresented the country’s deadliest mass shooting as a government plot to arm Australians and showed his mistrust of police in online messages, according to The Guardian.
In the wake of the massacre, Australia will need to address “serious and critical policy problems,” according to Ms. O’Neil, but “today is a day for sorrow.”
Growing up in a nearby village, local MP and Nationals Party leader David Littleproud claimed the shooting had shaken his neighborhood “to its core.”
According to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, the dead cops were “young people serving their society — with a rich and full life ahead of them,” and Mr. Dare was a “innocent Australian who paid for his kindness and concern with his life.”
