Neighbors of Larry Steven McQulliams, the suspect who opened fire on several government buildings in Austin on Friday morning, have come forward with different perspectives on the man’s personality.
One neighbor, Katie Matlack, told the Austin American-Statesman she remembered him as “a gentle soul ” who enjoyed drum circles, riding his bike, and taking care of neighbors’ pets.
“He was a very kind person. Everyone in the building knew him,” she said. “I think he was just frustrated at every turn.”
Meanwhile another person who lived near McQuilliams told the paper he was “not surprised at all” that he turned out to be the suspect.
“When I heard the SWAT team was next door I said ‘Wow, I bet this is the bicycle guy,'” Charles Witt said.
Matlack said McQuilliams, an apparent Renaissance Fair and martial arts enthusiast, had a criminal history that prevented him from finding work beyond a position at a local car wash.
The Statesman reports that he left his home in Wichita, Kansas a year and half earlier to seek new opportunities in Austin.
Austin police have publicly speculated about McQuilliams’ possible political motive for attempting to burn down the Mexican consulate on Friday, as well as firing over a hundred rounds in his attack on a courthouse, bank and police station.
That Mr. McQuilliams didn’t target the many people who were on the streets where he was shooting is a telling sign. May he have the peace that he sought.
The neighbor saying good things about him is probably afraid of all the people this idiot probably hung out with.
Poor guy was just cannon fodder for the Murdoch empire.
How many more must die before Ailes reels it in a notch?
A middle-aged still vital white male living in Tulsa, a bastion of white male supremacy, feeling (due to that culture, accurately) limited to demeaning entry-level employment as a menial laborer, gaining the age where such jobs are increasingly difficult for him to do but also just to get, competing for them as he must with young males also without skills - that guy’s going to be attracted to ‘blame’ those who appear responsible for his vulnerability. In Tulsa, that’d be the culture.
He moves to a more tolerant liberal culture, and there encounters a different dynamic of cultural limitation, now not just owing to the stigma of his criminal record. Now he’s in a culture actually MORE accepting and encouraging of colored people, particularly Hispanics. This could amp up frustrations, and those could turn dark from significantly greater feeling of isolation from being in a new town, and greater, more complicated feelings of marginalization.
The male ego will incline to turn those feelings of resentment and isolation towards blame. I’m GUESSING here: he didn’t shoot anyone, or, so far as we know, even at anyone (except himself?). He shot at buildings housing institutions that, to him, fostered causes of his plight.
It’s a scenario open to confusion with what Michael Douglas portrayed in the film Falling Down. That’s not it. It’s more aligned with the anarchists starting around the turn towards the 20th century, who’d take pains to avoid harming the vulnerable yet feel moved to shoot princes and presidents.
I think they might be split on his personalty because he actually has a split personality, two or three at least.