Risk of another cop killer attack

Nathaniel, Gareth and Stacey Train were responsible for the “remorseless, ruthless” killings of two police officers and an innocent neighbour, ambushing the group sent out to investigate a missing person‘s report on Monday.

Constable Rachel McCrow, 29, and Constable Matthew Arnold, 26, were killed by a shower of bullets from a trio of shooters while two others, Constable Randall Kirk and Constable Keely Brough, managed to escape.

Neighbour Alan Dare was also killed after venturing onto the property, having heared the incident playing out.

As investigations into the killings take place, more information is coming to light, highlighting the group’s beliefs in conspiracy theories and links to right-wing extremist thought.

An account in the name of Gareth Train has posted radical conspiracy theories online, including claims the 1996 Port Arthur massacre was a “false flag” operation and a ”government psy-op massacre” intended to strip Australians of their gun rights.

The account also contained chilling messages about police, including when officers had ventured onto private property.

“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,” the account wrote.

“Fortunately for me, they have all been cowards. Our country is at a point where even cowards are now dangerous because they are unpredictable in groups; turn your back and you may find yourself out cold on the floor with law enforcement dancing on your head.”

The threat of right-wing violent extremism and terrorism is something experts have kept an eye on for several years, according to Melbourne University digital media lecturer Dr Philip Pond.

“ASIO has been warning about the threat of right-wing ideologies and extremist ideologies online since 2019-2020, but we first started to notice it in our data back in around 2015 or 2016,” he said.

“You’d sort of pick up on these extremist tropes and culture war issues in the Australian context.”

The chief of Australia’s national security agency, ASIO, has highlighted the growing threat such forms of extremism pose to the nation in the past, warning that “angry and alienated Australians” could carry out acts of violence, especially due to the internet being a “powerful incubator of extremism”.

“Social media platforms, chat rooms and algorithms are designed to join up people who share the same views, and push them material they will ‘like’. It’s like being in an echo chamber, where the echo gets louder and louder, generating cycles of exposure and reinforcement,” Mike Burgess said in a speech in February 2022.

The increase of that type of extremism exploded over the Covid-19 pandemic, according to Mr Burgess.

“Online radicalisation is nothing new, but Covid-19 sent it into overdrive. Isolated individuals spent more time online, exposed to extremist messaging, misinformation and conspiracy theories,” he said.

Dr Pond said his research found that post-lockdown, many extremists were speaking about “the authoritarian state, the loss of freedom, and overreaching pandemic lords”.

Stacy Train, formerly the head of curriculum at Tara Shire State School, left the Queensland Department of Education after refusing to get a Covid-19 vaccination, a former colleague told The Daily Telegraph.

The conspiracy account believed to be linked to Gareth Train also spouted anti-vaccine views, as well as concerns about drones and surveillance planes which he believed were observing their property in 2020.

“Unknown helicopter followed and hovered overtop of vehicle for several hundred metres. Followed by motor bike with pillion passenger several attempts to come alongside …” he posted.

People who are involved with far-right extremist ideology are being referred to support programs at increasing levels, such as the NSW Government’s Engagement and Support Program (ESP), which sees case managers and senior psychologists work to pull people away from extremist paths.

The ESP program’s caseload has gone from 80 per cent Islamist extremists to 20 per cent far-right extremists when it first started in 2019, to a 50-50 split between the two radical beliefs.

“The scales are tipping; at the moment we’re seeing a rise in far-right extremism,” the program’s spokesperson, Rebecca Shaw, said.

With 17 clients currently going through the program, Ms Shaw says demand for the department’s services is increasing.

“It’s growing exponentially; we’re frantically recruiting more staff,” she said.

ESP largely services clients who fit similar descriptions to the Train brothers, with 94 per cent of those accessing the program being male, a third being over the age of 30, half being from rural areas, and a large portion having mental health issues.

Both brothers had lived in rural Australia for large portions of their lives, and there are reports of Nathaniel Train’s deteriorating mental health after a heart attack and cheating scandal at a school he was leading.

Far-right groups are always on the lookout for events they can use for sinister purposes, according to Macquarie University Criminology lecturer Lise Waldek.

“Violent extremist organisations are opportunistic; Covid opened up opportunities for groups and individuals to become exposed to other things,” she said.

“There are parallels and therefore opportunities for far-right extremists to connect with people in other conspiratorial communities.”

Dr Pond says it could be some time before the impact of the horrific incident on extremist communities is realised.

“You see lots of activity after these sorts of events; there’s lots of talk about them. In some quarters there’ll be a celebration, in some quarters they’ll be repackaged and used in different ways or folded into conspiracies elsewhere,” he said.

“You need to see, after six months to a year, how much of that chatter has been taken up and is used by these groups.”

Those who believe someone close to them could be involved in extremism are urged to contact authorities or programs like the NSW Government’s StepTogether program.

“Early intervention is just critical, which is another reason people need to hear about what ESP does. Usually people who are close to these people are going to be the ones that ultimately prompt the intervention,” Ms Shaw said.

“There’s no end to what we will do to help our clients stay on track in terms of their disengagement progress … a big sign of disengagement is when they’re willing to get their tattoos removed because it’s really painful.

“You know, they have like, full-on Adolf Hitler on the back of their legs, swastikas all over, and we will pay for their tattoo removal.”