On Sunday evening, a man started a brush fire on Canfield Mountain near Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, then waited for firefighters to respond before shooting at them.
Two were killed - one from the Coeur d'Alene Fire Department and one from Kootenai County Fire and Rescue. Another was badly injured.
The distress call from one first responder was grim.
Hours after heavily-armed state and federal teams were sent as backup, the Kootenai County Sheriff said SWAT officers had located the shooter, dead. Sheriff Robert Norris said they had to "scoop the body up" before it was burned in the fire.
There's been no word about the suspect's background, which is only strange to those who don't follow modern crime reporting. Many times, a perp's name, photo, and/or motive will not be released if there was a particular ideological bent that would cause the public to offend thoughtcrime. The transgender girl who shot up a Christian school in Nashville is but one of many examples.
Many liberals on social media are noting that northern Idaho is a conservative area so the shooter must be a Trump voter, but Coeur d'Alene is a blue dot in a red state. The city approved one of the toughest hAte cRiMe laws in the nation, banned religious symbols like crosses from parades, and has far-left salon owners who think Trump voters are the devil.
Suffice to say, it isn't all "MAGA" voters running around.
What's more important for context is that Coeur d'Alene was once the headquarters of one of the nation's most notorious neo-Nazi cults, Aryan Nations.
Aryan Nations operated in a compound in the hills outside Coeur d'Alene beginning in the 1970s. Its founder wanted to split the United States into ethnic groups, with a white enclave in the Pacific Northwest. The group went bankrupt after its members beat up two Native Americans in 1998 and were charged millions of dollars in a lawsuit.
The compound was sold in 2001, and some of the buildings were burned down to train local firefighters.
Oh, did I mention that a news report of firefighters burning down the compound's security house was published on June 29, 2001, exactly 24 years to the day before this sniper decided to lure in firefighters?
(Here's another report from 2001 detailing how firefighters burned the leader's home and other buildings.)
Despite bankruptcy and the death of its founder, the group continued to stay active in the area. In 2013, a young firefighter tried to leave the group and was murdered as a result.
Others are speculating that the perp was a former U.S. Army infantryman who is currently on the run after he allegedly killed his own three daughters in neighboring Washington.
Decker was last seen only a few hours from Coeur d'Alene by car.
This is all guess-work (for all we know this person had a completely different motive), but it's a lesson in thinking about context versus arguing whether the shooter votes blue or red.
As for the firefighters, the entire community banded together in a show of solidarity as they returned home 👇
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We will update this article once (or if) authorities provide more information on a motive for the shooting.
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