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Trained to Fight for His Country, He Turned Against It – And He's Not Alone · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, so today we're diving into something pretty heavy, the
• 0:04
  connection between military training and extremism, specifically domestic terrorism here
• 0:10
  in the US. Yeah, and honestly, some of the findings
• 0:14
  in these reports are kind of terrifying.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it's unsettling stuff, for sure.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: It is. It's like, did you realize that veterans are
• 0:21
  statistically more likely to be involved in these extremist plots?
• 0:26
  It's true than people who haven't served.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and what's really wild is it's not even like
• 0:32
  a huge number of veterans overall. Right, it's a small percentage.
• 0:36
  But it's the training, you know, the experience with weapons,
• 0:41
  the tactical knowledge, that's what makes this group so dangerous.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Right, It's like you're giving a loaded weapon to somebody
• 0:47
  and they don't know how to control their emotions or.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: Something, exactly a recipe for disaster.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: And to kind of illustrate this whole thing, we're going
• 0:53
  to look at this case of Chris Arthur. He was
• 0:56
  in Iraq war vette who went down a really dark path. Yeah,
• 0:59
  but before we get into the specifics, can you give
• 1:01
  us a little context.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: Absolutely so, Chris Arthur's case, it's definitely an extreme example
• 1:07
  but it reflects some wider trends that we really need
• 1:09
  to pay attention to. Okay, there's this research from START
• 1:13
  that's the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and
• 1:17
  Responses to Terrorism HATCHA, and they found some pretty unsettling stuff,
• 1:21
  like get this, military background is the number one predictor
• 1:26
  of involvement in extremist mass casualty events.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: WHOA hold on, Yeah, you're saying number one. It's not
• 1:33
  like mental health history or anything. It's literally just having
• 1:36
  served in the military.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: It's the strongest predictor, which is wild when you think
• 1:40
  about it, not a history of crime or anything else.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: Wow, that's crazy.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: It's a huge red flag.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: And this isn't like a new thing either, right, this
• 1:47
  has been going on for a while, sadly. I mean
• 1:50
  you think back to like Timothy McVeigh. Oh, absolutely, Oklahoma
• 1:53
  City bombing textbook case back in ninety five. That was
• 1:56
  like a major wake up call that showed just how
• 1:59
  bad it can get when you mix extreme beliefs with
• 2:02
  military training.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: It's a terrifying combination. And it's not limited to just
• 2:07
  a handful of cases either. What's really alarming is that
• 2:10
  over eighty percent of extremist veterans. According to start, they
• 2:15
  align with far right ideologies.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: Wow, okay, So let's dive into this Chris Arthur case
• 2:20
  because it seems like his story really brings all these
• 2:24
  statistics to life in a really disturbing way.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: It does, and it shows just how high the stakes
• 2:29
  are when we're talking about extremism and military training.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's easy to get caught up in all the
• 2:35
  statistics and the data totally, but we're talking about real
• 2:38
  people here, right, real lives impacted by this stuff, and
• 2:42
  Chris Arthur's story it's a harsh reminder of that.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: So pain is a picture. Then, who was this guy?
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: On the surface, he was your average Iraq war veteran okay,
• 2:50
  served in the National Guard, even started his own tactical
• 2:53
  training business really yeah, called it Tackleberry Solutions, basically took
• 2:57
  those military skills and tried to make a living from it.
• 3:00
  But underneath it all things were way darker than they seemed.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: You're saying his views were really that extreme?
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, extremely extreme. And the scary part is it
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  wasn't just talk.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: Wait, so he was actually acting on this.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: Stuff absolutely, And this is where it gets really unsettling.
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  The guy had a homemade bomb hidden on his porch,
• 3:19
  the same porch where his kids played.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: Are you serious? That's insane, Okay, even for someone with
• 3:25
  extreme beliefs. That's messed up. You don't put your own
• 3:28
  family at risk.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: Like that, Right, It's a chilling example of how this
• 3:31
  extremist ideology can warp your perception of reality.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: It's terrifying. Were there any warning signs? Did anyone know
• 3:38
  what he was up to?
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: That's the crazy thing. People did know. There were red
• 3:42
  flags and they were basically ignored.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: You mean those reports from his ex brother in.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: Law exactly, this guy, he really tried to do something.
• 3:49
  He reported Arthur to everyone, the military, the FBI even
• 3:53
  went to the local police wow, talked about Arthur's violent rhetoric,
• 3:57
  his calls for violence against law enforcement, everything, but nothing happened.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: So the system just completely failed to connect the dots.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: It seems that way, and unfortunately, Arthur's case is a
• 4:06
  prime example of how bad those consequences can be.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: Especially when you consider what happened with that Joshua Blessed guy,
• 4:13
  the one who Arthur actually trained.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: Right, That's where this whole thing goes from disturbing to
• 4:17
  downright terrifying.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: Okay, So remind us who was Blessed and what did
• 4:22
  he do?
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: So Blessed was a truck driver, okay, and he had
• 4:25
  a huge issue with law enforcement. Wanted to form militias,
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  the whole nine yards. And he finds Arthur online, sees
• 4:32
  he's offering tactical training courses.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: It's like the perfect storm exactly.
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  Speaker 2: He's like, here's my chance.
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  Speaker 1: So this guy gets a crash course in domestic terrorism
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  from a seasoned vet. What could possibly go wrong?
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  Speaker 2: You already know the answer to that. After training with Arthur,
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  Blessed went on a rampage in upstate New York.
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  Speaker 1: Oh many about.
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  Speaker 2: High speed chase, shooting at police officers, a whole thing.
• 4:54
  And get this, he used tactics he learned directly from Arthur.
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  You kidding, Nope, specifically something called a fatal funnel. It's
• 5:03
  a military tactic designed to inflict maximum casualties when you're
• 5:06
  facing a larger force. That is terrifying, it's chilling, and
• 5:11
  it takes us right back to those statistics we talked
• 5:13
  about earlier with veterans being overrepresented in these types of events.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: Right, it's like a domino effect of extremism and violence.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: And here's the thing that keeps me up at night,
• 5:22
  this whole situation. It exposes a system that's either unwilling
• 5:26
  or unable to address this issue head on. The Pentagon
• 5:30
  even did its own research on identifying this kind of
• 5:33
  extremist activity within the military. Wait, really, they knew this
• 5:37
  was a problem, it seems so, but they basically shelved
• 5:40
  the entire project.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: Are you serious? They had a way to track this
• 5:43
  stuff potentially stop people like Arthur early on, and they
• 5:47
  just ignored it.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: It's baffling and incredibly concerning.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: I mean, it suggests a huge blind spot in the system.
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: Right. Absolutely, we need more transparency, more accountability, a lot
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  less baring our heads in the sand when it comes
• 6:00
  to this stuck totally.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: It all circles back to those warnings about Arthur. Right,
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  everyone had a piece of the puzzle, but no one
• 6:07
  put it together in time exactly.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: And it raises this question, what can we actually do
• 6:12
  to address this effectively before it's too late?
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: Right, Because these aren't just hypothetical scenarios. We're talking about
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  realize being shattered because of this.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, it's a huge problem and we need to be
• 6:23
  having serious conversations about solutions.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: So how did this all end? How do they finally
• 6:29
  catch Chris Arthur? It's crazy, right, like political prisoner. Come on,
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  the guy with stockpiling weapons, training people to be like,
• 6:37
  you know, killing machines and advocating for violence against the police.
• 6:42
  That's not politics, man.
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  Speaker 2: It's scary how that kind of talk has become so
• 6:46
  normalized though, right, totally.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: It's like what we saw after January sixth exactly.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: They try to paint themselves as the victims. It's wild.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: But let's not forget this Chris Arthur guy wasn't exactly
• 6:57
  a choir boy, No, not at all. I mean the
• 6:59
  stuff they found it his property. We're not talking about
• 7:01
  a couple of hunting rifles here.
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely not. This was an arsenal.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: What all did they find?
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: They found grenades, improvise grenades but still get out, Yeah,
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  thousands of rounds of ammunition. Yeah, and don't forget that
• 7:14
  pipe bomb he had rigged up on his porch.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: Okay, now, that's just messed up.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: It's clear this guy was prepared for something big.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: It's chilling, yeah, and it just shows how real this
• 7:23
  threat is, especially coming from people with military experience and the.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: Scary part is the climate we're in right now. Right,
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  Political tensions are high, Everyone's getting their news from who
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  knows where online.
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  Speaker 1: It's just a recipe for disaster exactly. So where does
• 7:38
  that leave us? What are we supposed to take away
• 7:40
  from all of this?
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  Speaker 2: I think the big question is could any of this
• 7:43
  have been prevented? The attack Arthur going down this path anything.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: It's tough to say, but it makes you wonder if
• 7:52
  we're doing enough to address this issue.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: We have to at least try, right because this is
• 7:56
  affecting real people. Real lives are being shattered because of this.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: It's a scary thought, and honestly, it's a reminder that
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  we all need to be more willing to speak up
• 8:07
  if we see something that seems.
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: Off absolutely, because if we don't say something, who will exactly.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: Well, On that note, that's been all the time we
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  have for today's deep dive, but we'd love to hear
• 8:17
  your thoughts on this. What can we do as a
• 8:19
  society to understand and address this problem of extremism? Let
• 8:23
  us know. Until next time, stay curious, stay engaged, and
• 8:26
  keep diving deep.