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New York Post
23-07-2025
- New York Post
Idaho firefighter sniper had been turned away by fire department, Army before deadly attacks
The man accused of fatally shooting two Idaho firefighters before killing himself last month had tried to join the fire department, and became angry when told he would need to go through training and testing. Wess Roley also tried to join the Army twice — his father was an Army veteran — but was disqualified after failing to follow through on tasks and appointments, Kootenai County Sheriff Bob Norris said Tuesday at a press conference. The new revelations offer a more complete picture of the 20-year-old's resentments. Officials also presented evidence suggesting the attack was premeditated — a goodbye letter to his father they found in his truck and drawings in his home that appear to show a mountain parking lot with a shotgun being fired and a person aiming a rifle at his chin. 6 Idaho firefighter sniper Wess Roley was rejected by both the fire department and the Army. 'Tomorrow, I shall go to battle,' Roley wrote to his father. 'If I survive, it would be with upmost dishonor. I bid thee farewell.' Next to his signature were two symbols that appear to be runes linked to Nazi ideology. Roley used gas, lighters and flint to start a series of fires at Canfield Mountain on June 29 to instigate a response, then shot at firefighters who asked him to move his vehicle, Norris said. He shot at others from a tree before dying from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, the sheriff said. 'A pure act of evil' 'This was a premeditated ambush, a pure act of evil against the people we look to for help,' Norris said. Killed were Kootenai County Fire and Rescue Battalion Chief Frank Harwood, 42, and Coeur d'Alene Fire Department Battalion Chief John Morrison, 52. Coeur d'Alene Fire Engineer David Tysdal, 47, was hospitalized in critical condition. 6 Kootenai County Fire & Rescue Battalion Chief Frank Harwood fatally shot by Idaho sniper Wess Roley. IAFF 7th District Investigators hope to learn more from Roley's social media accounts, but it's clear that his frustrations were growing over time, the sheriff said. Roley tried to become a soldier in Arizona in 2023 and again last year in Hayden, Idaho, 'but failed to follow through on tasks and appointments, eventually being disqualified by the U.S. Army,' Norris said. Then, one month before the shootings, Roley went to a Coeur d'Alene fire station asking about becoming a firefighter, Norris said. 6 Roley tried to become a soldier in Arizona in 2023 and again last year in Hayden, Idaho. Kootenai County Sheriff's Office 'He had the state of mind that he would be able to start that day,' Norris said. 'He was told there's a process — you have a written exam, and a physical agility and a background investigation and an oral interview. The contact became agitated and frustrated. He left there in a very frustrated and agitated state.' Former classmate recalls shooter as aggressive Beyond what the sheriff shared, little is known about Roley's motivation, but Associated Press interviews and court records reveal a troubled early home life and a disconnect from schoolmates, who saw him as an aggressive young man who liked to draw bombs and use firearms. Roley lived with his mother, Heather Caldwell-Cuchiara, and stepfather in Phoenix, Arizona, before moving to northern Idaho to live with his father, Jason Roley, in 2024. 6 Screenshot of suspect Wess Roley's Instagram story is seen at the Kootenai County Sheriff's Office during a press conference Monday, June 30, 2025, in Hayden, Idaho. Dieter Denen, who went to elementary, middle and high school with Roley, told the AP that Roley's aggression and 'racist' comments made classmates uncomfortable. 'He was really on edge a lot,' Denen said. Roley would say unkind or rude things to people of a different race, culture or religion, he said. 'You'd kind of go, 'what the heck — why would you say that — it's a little messed up to say that,' he said. Roley got in trouble for drawing a swastika in a school book, and also liked to draw bombs, planes and 'military things,' Denen said. Roley also bragged about his time in Germany: 'He would always tell me, 'I'm a lot more German in every way compared to you.' Denen said he couldn't believe it when a friend texted an article about the shootings. 6 Idaho shooter Wess Roley in an undated Facebook photo posted by his mother Heather Lynn Caldwell. Facebook/Heather Lynn Caldwell 'It's just so shocking,' Denen said. 'With Wess, he was definitely different when we were younger but it's hard to think that anyone could ever do something like that.' Mother got protection order against his father Court records show his parents, Heather and Jason Roley, were married in San Bernardino, California, in 2008. Jason Roley served in the Army from 2007 to 2015, including two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, and left the service as a staff sergeant, an Army spokesperson said. The family lived in Grafenwöhr, Germany, home to a large U.S. Army base, from 2010 to 2015, when Wess Roley was 5 to 10 years old. Records show his mother filed for divorce after they moved to Phoenix and sought a protection order saying Jason Roley posed a threat to her and their son. Her petition said he was an alcoholic and had been arrested for assaulting her on Oct. 1, 2015. 'He was very intoxicated,' she wrote. 'He was crying inconsolably saying that he was going to commit suicide. Things escalated. He punched several holes in the walls, destroyed my cell phone, pushed me to the ground.' Jason Roley texted her after his arrest saying he was going to kill himself, she wrote. 'Jason verbally threatened me by saying he would be waiting outside with a sniper rifle and burn the place down,' she wrote. 'He said the only thing stopping him from going through with it was going to prison.' 'They did not deserve this' 6 Battalion Chief John Morrison fatally shot by Idaho sniper Wess Roley. City of Coeur d'Alene The judge ordered him to stay away from his wife and son and surrender any firearms. 'I am not a danger to my son or anyone else,' Jason Roley responded. 'The plaintiff did not tell the truth in her statement.' The judge apparently believed her after a hearing. His order cited an act of domestic violence and said he might do it again. The protection would continue for the mother, but not their minor child. Three years later, Jason Roley applied for a marriage license, with Sara Peterson. Their social media pages say they're married and live in Priest River, Idaho, near Sandpoint, where Wess Roley had been living before he became homeless. Email and phone messages seeking Jason Roley's comment were not returned. His father, Dale Roley, wrote on Facebook that he's the grandfather. 'I would like give my Condolence's to all those family members who were Unfortunately Victims of yesterdays Crimes,' Dale Roley wrote. 'Those good Brave Firefighters were just doing there Job they did not deserve this!'
New York Post
23-07-2025
- New York Post
Idaho sniper Wess Roley who killed 2 firefighters in ambush left behind twisted drawings of himself dying, goodbye letter to father
Gun-obsessed Idaho firefighter slayer Wess Roley left a chilling goodbye letter to his father, along with multiple twisted drawings depicting himself dying during his premeditated ambush on a pair of firefighters he killed in late June. The Kootenai County Sheriff's Office shared the new documents detailing 20-year-old Roley's erratic behavior and his odd patterns of speech at a press conference Tuesday. Multiple drawings depicted crude sketches of Roley with gunshot wounds and even a Pentagram on his forehead, including one he titled 'Goodbye Wess.' Advertisement 6 Wess Roley fatally shot two firefighters and injured a third during an ambush in late June. 6 Police found multiple drawings that Roley left behind depicting his own death. Kootenai County Sheriff's Office 6 Roley wrote 'Kill Kill Kill' on one drawing. Kootenai County Sheriff's Office Advertisement Investigators also found a letter riddled with spelling inaccuracies that Roley wrote to his father in his vehicle at the scene on Canfield Mountain, where he intentionally set a fire and waited just a few yards away for firefighters to arrive before opening fire, killing two and injuring a third. 'Hello Father, I write this to you in a concerned effort that you may read this in upmost sincerity. Tomorrow I shall go into battle if I survive, it would be with upmost dishonor. I bid thee farewell, I hope that you shall live to the fullest extent as you have thus far,' Roley wrote. 6 Roley also wrote a goodbye letter to his father. Kootenai County Sheriff's Office 'I beg that you do not fall into the traps of modern existence, with media and other false pleasantries that plague the minds of individuals today. Propaganda of sorts. You are a upstanding individual and I wish you the best.' Advertisement The cryptic letter echoed Roley's posts on social media during the hours leading up to the shooting, including one saying he was 'going hunting.' He also displayed other disturbing patterns of behavior when he was still just a teenager and would often doodle Swastikas and weapons in his notebooks at school, according to investigators. Just one month before his deadly attack, Roley tried to apply to be a firefighter at the Coeur d'Alene Fire Department — the very station he would attack. 6 Roley wrote 'Run Away' on another drawing. Kootenai County Sheriff's Office Advertisement During the application process, Roley, who had a history of unmedicated ADHD and marijuana use he struggled to quit, quickly 'became agitated with the process and left frustrated,' Kootenai County Sheriff Bob Norris said. He also tried to enlist in the US Army three times, but consistently neglected to follow up on required tasks and appointments, which led to his disqualification, KREM reported. 6 Another drawing had 'Peace and Solidarity' scrawled on it. Kootenai County Sheriff's Office Many of the documents recovered during the ongoing investigation — including the shared letter and drawings — are still being reviewed, Norris said. On June 29, Roley shot and killed two firefighters responding to a fire he set in northern Idaho before turning the gun on himself. Eerily, the father he lauded in his goodbye letter previously threatened to set a fire and shoot his family with a sniper rifle during messy divorce proceedings in 2015. Because of his threats, a protective order was put in place at his mother's request, barring his father from contacting the family. It is unclear when the order may have expired.
NBC News
05-07-2025
- NBC News
After deadly ambush, Idaho firefighters grapple with the loss of two colleagues
Joshua Hoston, an 18-year veteran of Idaho's Coeur d'Alene Fire Department, remembers the moment a routine wildfire call turned into a deadly ambush that killed two fellow firefighters and wounded a third. 'We dropped everything we had, hopped back in the truck, and went racing back up to the mountain,' Hoston said. What initially seemed like an ordinary report of a wildfire in the northwest Idaho city quickly devolved into chaos as first responders came under fire — an attack that has shaken the close-knit firefighting community. Hoston said he was called to Canfield Mountain on Sunday, June 29, and was assisting with retrieving a UTV, a four-wheeled vehicle used to access tight terrain, when a call crackled over the radio: shots fired. 'The way it sounded, we knew it wasn't a joke,' he said. What he and others didn't know at the time was that a man — now identified as 20-year-old Wess Roley — had allegedly set the fire intentionally to ambush responding firefighters. Hoston said a captain with the Northern Lakes Fire District quickly ordered crews to stay at a staging area, away from the gunfire. He said he felt 'helpless' not being able to rush to his colleagues to help, but acknowledged the decision likely saved more lives. 'If we all had been up there, we'd have been trapped,' he said. 'It would have been a stack of bodies.' Battalion Chiefs John Morrison and Frank J. Harwood were killed in the attack. Firefighter David Tysdal was wounded and remains hospitalized in stable condition after undergoing multiple surgeries. 'It's been the worst imaginable 56 hours,' Coeur d'Alene firefighter and captain Jeff Fletcher told NBC News. Fletcher was off duty that day and mountain biking in nearby Sandpoint when he began receiving urgent calls. He was told 'two of my best friends' had been shot. He rushed to the Coeur d'Alene fire station, then to the hospital, where he and another firefighter set up a command post. 'Just to see the smoke plume from the wildland fire really brought realities to what we were about to undertake,' he said in a phone call on Thursday. 'I think everybody initially was like, 'How can this be happening? How can it be in our community?'' Kootenai County Sheriff Bob Norris said the 'firefighters did not have a chance' after Roley allegedly opened fire. Norris said they received reports that Roley — who, according to his family, once dreamed of becoming a firefighter — fired at responders from a tree. Roley was found dead on the mountain last Sunday from a suspected self-inflicted gunshot wound, authorities said. A flint starter and shotgun were also recovered at the scene. 'The most amazing person' Fletcher said the days since the attack have been chaotic, leaving little time to process the tragedy. 'I'd say that a lot of us, we're still in the trenches,' he said. 'We're also trying to balance grieving for John and Frank and supporting Dave, and then also pulling shifts and going on calls and trying to maintain our composure.' Fletcher grew emotional recalling his 23-year friendship with Morrison, the battalion chief, and firefighter Tysdal, which began on his first day on the job. 'Dave is just the most amazing person,' he said through tears. In the winter, Tysdal runs a Christmas tree farm. 'He included everybody in anything he was doing,' Fletcher said. 'He's the most generous, nicest person I've ever met.' Officials said in an update last week that Tysdal underwent a third surgery. He was taken off a ventilator and was speaking, despite suffering severe chest and spinal trauma. Morrison embodied 'leadership on the fire ground that can never be replaced,' Fletcher said. 'In his position, when you show up to big incidents, he's basically calling the shots. There was never second-guessing what his strategy was,' he said. 'When you got back to the firehouse, he was the nicest, friendliest and funniest guy you'd ever meet.' Idaho Gov. Brad Little said he was 'heartbroken,' calling the attack a 'heinous direct assault on our brave firefighters.' Hundreds of people gathered for a procession Tuesday honoring Morrison and Harwood. A motive in the shooting remains unclear. Authorities said no manifesto has been found and they still do not know why Roley was in the area. Norris, the sheriff, said it appeared he had been living out of his car. The fire has burned about 23 acres and was 100% contained as of Friday morning, the Idaho Department of Lands said in a Facebook post. Roley's family could not be reached for comment. They released a statement Monday through their attorney, Justin P. Whittenton, saying that they 'do not understand why this happened or how this came about.' Since the attack, support for the victims and local fire community has poured in, said Ricky Walsh, vice president of the International Association of Fire Fighters District 7. 'We are our sisters' and brothers' keepers, and we are going to lean on each other and get through this event,' he said. Tracy Rohr, 52, of Coeur d'Alene, said watching the community come together has been 'heartwarming but tragically sad.' 'For me personally, I feel an overwhelming sense of pride for the way our community has come together,' she said. 'But also, I definitely feel like we're all at a loss. It's tragic.'
1News
02-07-2025
- 1News
Idaho man accused of killing two firefighters once aspired to be one
A 20-year-old man's life appeared to have begun to unravel in the months before authorities say he fatally shot two firefighters and severely wounded a third as they responded to a wildfire near Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. Wess Roley was living out of his vehicle and his former roommate, T.J. Franks Jr., said he shaved off his long hair and started to "kind of go downhill'. The two lived together for about six months in Sandpoint, Idaho, until Roley moved out in January, Franks said today. Roley, who authorities say took his own life after yesterday's shootings, is suspected of killing two battalion chiefs whose firefighting carriers in Idaho spanned nearly half a century combined. The deaths of Frank Harwood, 42, with Kootenai County Fire and Rescue, and John Morrison, 52, with the Coeur d'Alene Fire Department, have left their colleagues reeling, resulting in their departments adding law enforcement to every call, no matter how routine. 'I don't know that we're ever going to be able to guarantee people's peace of mind, at least for a while after an incident like this,' Kootenai County Fire and Rescue Chief Christopher Way said. 'But we are taking every measure we can to ensure safety of our responders.' Roley had set a fire using flint at Canfield Mountain, a popular recreation area, according to authorities. The firefighters who rushed to the scene found themselves under fire and took cover behind fire trucks. ADVERTISEMENT 'There was an interaction with the firefighters,' Kootenai County Sheriff Bob Norris said. 'It has something to do with his vehicle being parked where it was.' Smoke rises from a fire near Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, where responding firefighters were shot and killed by sniper fire. (Source: Associated Press) Two helicopters converged on the area, armed with snipers ready to take out the suspect if needed, while the FBI used his cellphone data to track him and the sheriff ordered residents to shelter in place. They eventually found Roley's body in the mountains, his firearm beside him. He had killed himself, the sheriff said. Roley had once aspired to be a firefighter and had only a handful of minor contacts with area police, Norris said. A motive was still unknown, he said. He had ties to California and Arizona and was living in Idaho 'for the better part of 2024', although it was unclear why he was there, Norris said. When Roley was living with Franks, his apartment cameras caught Roley throwing gang signs at them, which worried Franks to the point that he called police. The landlord also called Franks one morning because neighbours reported that Roley's vehicle had been left running for about 12 hours. Franks said Roley was asleep in his room and said he forgot about the vehicle. ADVERTISEMENT Hours after the shooting, people gathered along Interstate 90 holding American flags to pay their respects as the two fallen firefighters' bodies were taken to the medical examiner's office in Spokane, Washington, about 56 kilometres from Coeur d'Alene. A procession from Kootenai Health headed to Spokane after two firefighters were killed when they were ambushed by sniper fire in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. (Source: Bill Buley/Coeur D'Alene Press via AP) Governor Brad Little ordered US and Idaho state flags to be lowered to half-staff to honour the firefighters until the day after their memorial service. 'All our public safety officers, especially our firefighters, bravely confront danger on a daily basis but we have never seen a heinous act of violence like this on our firefighters before,' he said in a statement. Harwood, one of the victims of the shooting, had been with the county fire department for 17 years, Kootenai County Fire and Rescue Chief Christopher Way said during a news conference today. Harwood was married and had two children, and he also was a veteran of the Army National Guard. Morrison, who was also killed, started his career with the Coeur d'Alene Fire Department in 1996 and had also worked as a paramedic. Coeur d'Alene Fire Department fire engineer David Tysdal, 47, sustained gunshot wounds and was in critical condition. Authorities said he had two successful surgeries. 'We still are in shock and are struggling to understand why someone would target unarmed, selfless public servants,' said Coeur d'Alene Mayor Woody McEvers. By this afternoon, the fire was 'reasonably contained", and responders had 'stopped significant forward progress", Way said. The Idaho Department of Lands said it had burned about 10.5ha.
Yahoo
01-07-2025
- Yahoo
No Firefighter Is Surprised by What Just Happened in Idaho
Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. On Sunday, 20-year-old Wess Roley, it's alleged, started a wildfire near Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, then lay in wait for firefighters to respond. When they did, he apparently opened fire, killing Kootenai County Fire and Rescue Chief Frank Harwood and Coeur d'Alene Fire Department Battalion Chief John Morrison. He also critically wounded Coeur d'Alene Fire Department engineer David Tysdal. Roley was found dead, with a shotgun by his side, later that day. The attack dominated headlines, becoming a global story and immediately sparking political tribal skirmishes on social media. The enormous interest makes sense. It's a horrible tragedy. We expect this kind of thing when it comes to police officers or other professionals for whom violence is a tool of the trade. Hearing that other crisis responders, especially firefighters, who are unarmed and there only to help, have come under fire could be shocking. But not to me, and not, I suspect, to other firefighters. Last year, almost to the day, I gathered together in a sweltering high school auditorium with about 50 firefighters, EMTs, and a small cadre of cops to undergo rescue task force training, which focuses on how civilian personnel, like firefighters, can partner with armed law enforcement to render critical aid to victims in a mass-casualty incident. The training was highly effective, emphasizing command and control, triage, trauma life support, and casualty evacuation. It lasted just a few hours and was packed with critical information, so I tried to pay close attention. I'll admit that I did have to put in some effort. Because, for the most part, I'd already been through it when I took Tactical Combat Casualty Care training before deploying to Iraq in 2007. While tweaked somewhat to deal with a domestic incident (such as dealing with distraught parents during a school shooting), the Venn diagram for the two trainings was almost a circle. Indeed, the idea that responders to shooting incidents, whether armed or unarmed, should undergo TCCC training is an element of the 2013 Hartford Consensus. This was a kind of national throwing up of the hands that accepted that shootings could not be stopped, and shifted focus to a more effective response, recommending that responders adopt a tripartite mission when time is of the essence: 1) Stop the killing, 2) stop the dying, and 3) save as many as you can. The Hartford Consensus contains elements of a variety of mass casualty programs, including Federal Emergency Management Agency, emergency medical services protocols, advanced trauma life support, Stop the Bleed, and Tactical Emergency Casualty Care, the civilian equivalent of TCCC. The protocols of the instruction were so eerily similar to my Iraq pre-deployment training as to evoke intense déjà vu, and not just in terms of the triage discussion—the brutal calculus wherein first responders make the impossible decision to focus overstretched resources on those who are most likely to be saved, with the tacit understanding that there are those who will have to wait, perhaps interminably, for help. I also recognized the trauma life support measures, from tourniquet application, to the instruction in how to correctly vent a sucking chest wound, to the direction to use an elbow, shoulder, or knee to apply pressure to a convex surface. We covered wound packing (stuffing the hole with the Curlex rolled gauze we habitually carried in Iraq for that purpose in the hopes of stopping bleeding), dealing with clotting powder, and stabilizing victims for transport. But the most striking commonality was the way this training taught unarmed first responders to move with armed operators in the 'warm zone,' an area where the active shooter was not immediately present but where a shooting threat could still manifest. Rescue task force guidance stridently reinforced the lesson that unarmed civilian firefighters like me would be required to move in the warm zone to assist with all of the duties required above, necessarily placing us at risk of … well … getting shot. As a hedge against this possibility, law enforcement officers would be assigned to our contact team with the duty of protecting us and engaging any suspects who opened fire. As a targeting officer (a kind of tactical intelligence analyst) in Iraq, I was armed, but using that weapon was not my job. I carried it as a last resort. Instead, I relied on the 'hard operators' in my team to keep me safe, knowing that if they fell, I had at least a means of holing up and shooting it out with the enemy until the quick reaction force could extract me. Much of the training I received before deploying to Iraq centered on how I could move and integrate with hard operators in my team, staying out of their way until I was needed. This instruction reflects the reality of rising levels of violence directed at firefighters. There are the instances when we have to respond to active shooter incidents, but also, there are the times people shoot at or assault us, as happened in Coeur d'Alene. In 2023 Drexel University's Center for Firefighter Injury Research and Safety Trends noted a 69 percent increase in assaults on firefighters from 2021 to 2022 (from 350 to 593). Many of these incidents occur during medical calls, rather than fire responses. And this number may be an undercount, as FIRST looked only at those incidents reported in the media. I can personally attest that in the hypermasculine and stoic culture of the fire service, a minor assault that didn't result in injury or generate media attention could easily go unremarked on. Indeed, in the District of Columbia in 2023, the firefighters union complained of an increase in assaults against firefighters, describing the attacks as occurring 'fairly often.' The problem isn't confined to the United States. Three-quarters of German firefighters experienced some form of public violence during a response as of February of this year. A recent assault on a Canadian firefighter prompted changes to the criminal code to include firefighters and emergency medical services, and a small town in British Columbia authorized 15,000 Canadian dollars to purchase body armor for firefighters after an attack. While the impact of warfare is obviously a separate scenario, I would be remiss not to note the terrible toll Russia's invasion of Ukraine is taking on European firefighters. Numbers from the U.K. show that the figures are even worse for EMS responders, with whom firefighters usually work closely. The critical question is: why? The answer is complex, evolving, and desperately in need of attention. Spiraling distrust of institutions is an obvious culprit, and the tight bond between fire and police services, who often share resources, means that tensions in the rapport between the public and police are reflected on anyone showing up to a crisis with a uniform on. Then there's the increase in mental health–related calls, which frequently put firefighters in situations in which they are dealing with potentially unstable and reactive individuals like Roley, with the corresponding potential for violent outcomes. But the bottom line is that we don't know why this is happening, only that it is. The American fire service is largely dependent on volunteers and is already under increasing stress from climate change, a decline in volunteerism, and shifting technological demands. Violence against firefighters will only make this worse and may affect the decisionmaking of the people on which the entire system depends. I'm not getting paid for this—why am I risking my life? is a question Americans contemplating volunteering may be forgiven for asking. Given the trends, it's a question for which we owe them an answer. The time for formal, funded, and organized study of the reasons for violence against crisis responders is now.
