On May 8, 2014, 31-year-old Jerad Miller went on Facebook looking for a gun. One month after, Miller and his 22-year-old wife Amanda went on a shooting rampage in Las Vegas, leaving five people, including two police officers, one bystander and themselves, dead.
Miller's post is still up, even though Facebook announced earlier this year that it will delete posts that offer to buy or sell guns without background checks. In an article written by Miller on Infowars in 2012, Miller expressed his anger at the government for practically every negative thing that happened to him, including his decaying teeth, lack of health insurance and the inability to find work. He also said he was arrested and convicted of drug dealing and vehicle theft, which prohibits him and his wife from legally obtaining a gun.
"I was arrested for a crime, that is a felony, yet I hurt no one," he wrote two years ago. "Never laid a hand on a person or their property. Was selling something on the black market that is in high demand. Yet there was no victim in the crime I committed, so how can that be a felony charge? A charge that takes my 1st, 2nd and 4th right away? How can this be? Do I really live in a free country?"
Miller said in his post that he needed a rifle and that he did not care about what kind of gun he got his hands on, even if it's "a hundred dollar pink 22 rifle," as long as it could "touch evil tyrant bastards." One person asked what happened to Miller's gun, but Miller did not answer. Another said there were plenty of rifles at the gun store, but Miller said he could not afford to buy one because he was "broke" and "would be at some of the best gun stores in the country buying what we need" if he had the money.
"Idc (I don't care) if it's a ww2 m4 lol," he said in the comments. "Something for when they call us terrorists. We can defend ourselves."
Another person who realized that the public Facebook conversation was taking a not-so-pleasant turn recommended that Miller go anonymous "like the constitution always intended" and said he should not post on Facebook about his plans, whatever they were. Miller dismissed the last comment, which has now been deleted from the conversation, saying he was just "f*cking around."
But, of course, he wasn't. At 6 AM Sunday morning, the couple left their cats Leonardo and Oreo with Kelley Fielder, a neighbor they had been staying with supposedly because their home had become too unsanitary to inhabit. Kevin McMahill, assistant sheriff at the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, says the couple set out with a rifle, more than two handguns and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. It is unclear how the pair were able to obtain their weapons. Ms. Fielder says they belonged to Amanda Miller, who said they bought them for self-defense.
"'The revolution has begun' - that's what he kept saying," says Ms. Fielder. "All Jerad wanted to do is talk about overthrowing the government. I thought he was talking smack."
The couple chose a CiCi pizza parlor, where two police officers were having their lunch, to launch their attack at around noontime. Jerad Miller shot Igor Seldo at close range in the back of the head, killing him instantly. The couple then opened fire at Alyn Beck when he reacted, and covered his body with a piece of cloth with a swastika on it. On Seldo, they pinned a note that said, "The beginning of the revolution." They then crossed the street to a Walmart, where Joseph Robert Wilcox, a bystander with a gun, not realizing that Jerad was working in tandem with a partner, tried to stop him but was shot in the ribs by Amanda. The couple proceeded to ravage the store, terrifying shoppers who said they heard Jerad saying, "The revolution is about to start!"
Police had them cornered to the back of the store and, just before the SWAT came in, Amanda killed her husband before shooting herself in the head in what is obviously a suicide pact.
"At this time we believe this is an isolated act. There is no doubt that the suspects have some apparent ideology that's along the lines of militia and white supremacist," says McMahill.
A look at Jerad Miller's Facebook profile shows a man who harbors extreme resentment at the government. His last post was dated June 7 saying: "The dawn of a new day. May all of our coming sacrifices be worth it."
