Donald Day Jr has been arrested in connection with the Wieambilla terror attack. Here's what we know


The religious aspect of this matter is interesting.  Chiliastic religions are as old as the hills.  Dire prophecies were widely made throughout Europe concerning the approach of the year ONE thousand.  Modern day chiliatic religions best known are the Seventh Day Adventists and Jehovah's witnesses.  They both believe that Christ will return in glory SOON to put the world to rights. 

But followers of such religions are usually pacifist if anything, not violent.  So the Wieambilla cultists were unusual.  Their difference seemed to revolve around a suspicion of all governments as oppressive, with a concomitant right to "strike back" at oppressive authorities.  That is not without scriptural warrant. Christ said:

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household” (Matthew 10:34-36).

And from a conservative viewpoint it can indeed be said that we have a lot of oppression from governments these days.  We are probably fortunate that the conservative view does not usually ally with chiliastic beliefs  Wieambilla shows that that can be a very deadly alliance


An Arizonan extremist linked to the Wieambilla attack was a figure in the shooters' lives for more than two years before they murdered three people, a police investigation has revealed.

Donald Day Jr, 58, was arrested at Heber-Overgaard near Phoenix on December 1 and indicted on two charges. One relates to inciting violence online several days after the 2022 shooting in rural Queensland.

Constables Rachel McCrow and Matthew Arnold, and neighbour Alan Dare, were killed on December 12, in what police have described as a religiously-motivated terrorist attack.

The shooters — Stacey, Gareth and Nathaniel Train — also died.

Police said the Trains subscribed to a broad Christian fundamentalist belief system known as premillennialism.

Their online activity has been a key part of the investigation.

How was Donald Day Jr connected to the Trains?

Police said Gareth Train began following Mr Day's YouTube account in May 2020. A year later, the men began commenting on one another's videos.

"We have evidence to show the Trains subsequently accessed an older YouTube account created by the same man in 2014, and viewed that content," Queensland Police Service (QPS) Assistant Commissioner Cheryl Scanlon said at a joint press conference with the FBI on Wednesday.

Between May 2021 and the month of the attack, Mr Day "repeatedly" sent the Trains what police have described as "Christian, end-of-days ideological messages".

"The man repeatedly sent messages … to Gareth, and then later to Stacey," Assistant Commissioner Scanlon said.

What is he accused of doing?

Documents released by the US District Court in Arizona outline two charges against Mr Day.

Only the first charge is connected to the Wieambilla shooting. The second charge concerns an unrelated threat made to the head of the World Health Organization.

The first charge centres on a YouTube video that Mr Day allegedly posted on December 16 – four days after the shooting.

The video was titled 'Daniel and Jane'. These were pseudonyms used by Gareth and Stacey Train on YouTube, according to the court documents.

In the video, Mr Day allegedly said:

"It breaks my f***ing heart that there's nothing that I can do to help them. These are a people that are not armed, as we are in America, that at least have that one resort to fight against f***ing tyrants in this country. And here, my brave brother and sister, a son and a daughter of the Most High have done exactly what they were supposed to do, and that is to kill these f***ing devils."

He allegedly went on to say:

"Like my brother Daniel, like my sister Jane, it is no different for us. The devils come for us, they f***ing die. It's just that simple. We are free people, we are owned by no-one."

Prosecutors allege that last comment was a threat of violence towards any law enforcement officials who could come to Mr Day's home.

Assistant Commissioner Scanlon said evidence had been seized from a remote property about 30 kilometres north of Heber-Overgaard and was being analysed by the FBI.

"QPS will make formal requests to the FBI for any evidential material removed from the Arizona property for analysis," she said.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-12-07/donald-day-jr-wieambilla-terror-attack-what-we-know/103197118

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