Eric Frein thought the nation was headed in the wrong direction and concluded that change couldn’t be made at the ballot box. So, two months ago, he picked up a high-powered rifle and ambushed two troopers outside a Pennsylvania State Police barracks to “wake people up,” according to new court documents that provide the first indication of a possible motive.
In an interview with authorities the night of his capture and in a letter to his parents, Frein revealed himself to be deeply dissatisfied with the government and society, saying he hoped to foment a revolution to reclaim “the liberties we once had,” said the documents, filed Thursday in support of terrorism charges against thesniper suspect.
Frein already faced first-degree murder and other counts in the Sept. 12 ambush which killed Cpl. Bryon Dickson, seriously wounded another trooper and sparked a 48-day manhunt in the Pocono Mountains.
Frein has not entered a plea. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.
On the night of his capture, Frein waived his right to remain silent and told police in an interview at the barracks that he had shot the troopers “because he wanted to make a change (in government) and that voting was inefficient to do so, because there was no one worth voting for,” according to a criminal complaint. “The defendant further acknowledged taking action (shooting the troopers) to wake people up because it was all he could do.”
The complaint also included a letter, allegedly written by Frein and addressed to “Mom and Dad,” that extolled the virtues of revolution.
“I do not pretend to know what that revolution will look like or even if it would be successful,” he wrote before adding: “Tension is high at the moment and the time seems right for a spark to ignite a fire in the hearts of men. What I have done has not been done before and it felt like it was worth a try,” the documents said.
Frein also apologized to his parents, writing, “I am just not a good son,” according to documents.
Police found the letter on a storage drive inside the abandoned airplane hangar that Frein was apparently using as shelter. It was created Dec. 29, 2013, and last accessed on Oct. 6, while Frein was on the run, the documents said.Police have said Frein had a laptop with him.
Frein appeared by video Thursday at a brief hearing at which state police filed the additional charges.
Authorities, meanwhile, say they’re not worried that Frein’s alleged confession could conceivably be challenged by defense attorneys.
Police refused to tell him that his family had hired an attorney for him the night he was captured, according to defense attorney James Swetz, who said he was prevented from seeing Frein at the barracks.
“I was told, ‘He’s an adult and has not asked for a lawyer,'” Swetz recounted earlier this week.
District Attorney Ray Tonkin has cited Pennsylvania Supreme Court precedent that says police aren’t required to tell a suspect that an attorney is seeking to speak with him or her. A more recent state court decision, however, said the Supreme Court had not “eliminated the possibility” that a defendant’s due-process rights could be violated under similar circumstances.
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Of course nobody is surprised by this childish, idiotic motivation. But unlike in the film “The Fisher King,” where a media figure actually felt guilty because his stupid, hateful on-air rantings instigated a senseless murder, nobody who put these ideas in the air will feel a moment’s compunction for having helped push a sick mind into committing a real-life murder. Not a moment’s worth.
Did Frein bother to list the “liberties we once had” that we apparently no longer have?
This is the problem with watching Fox News and listening to the likes of Limbaugh. None of them deals in specificities. They will all curse the President for his “lawless behavior” without explaining what exactly was lawless, and swear that Obama deserves impeachment without clarifying why. You take a dangerous fool like Frein and give him all the guns & ammo he wants and pump him up with vague, unsubstantiated nonsense, and the next thing you know, there are dead bodies and ruined lives. When murderous idiots can’t separate facts from mercenary diatribes, it puts the rest of us in the cross-hairs. There should be a law against inciting people to commit crimes. Oh, wait, there is. Too bad no one ever applies it.
I’d bet my house he can’t list one. He’d mutter about bureaucracy and regulations and political correctness. It’s a mood, not a definable position, I’m guessing; he feels trammeled and buffeted about by a world that’s changing in ways he fears, hates, and can’t control.
Actually. Mr. Frein, it’ has “been done before.”
See:
Timothy McVeigh, who blew up a federal building and killed 168 to avenge Ruby Ridge and the Branch Davidians,
The guy who went after the Tide Foundation after getting stirred up by the ravings of Glenn Beck,
The guy who shot up a Unitarian church after getting pumped up by the ravings of FOX News’s Hannity and O’Reilly,
and
The numerous “sovereign citizens,” survivalists, militia members, anti-abortion fanatics, and neo-confederates who have instigated violence against their fellow citizens for political purposes.
Also, what you did is not revolution; it’s terrorism.
Fox-toxxed Goober