Australian police exploring shooter’s conspiracy theories in a bid to understand the Queensland siege

Gareth Train, 47, was a paranoid conspiracy theorist and doomsday prepper. He was even building an ark to, in his words, save himself from “tomorrow”.

Police are now investigating a number of online posts Train made, in an attempt to understand how this tragedy came to be.

“From what we can see, it seemed senseless, it seemed unnecessary,” said Queensland Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll.

One of Gareth’s conspiracy theories surrounded the 1996 Port Arthur massacre. He believed this was a “false flag” operation, staged by the Australian government, to help introduce nation-wide gun restrictions.

He was also convinced he had an “intelligence file” held by Australia’s top spy agency, ASIO.

But as the four young officers made their way to the remote property in Queensland, three hours west of Brisbane, police were largely unaware of his online activity.

They arrived at the house in search of Gareth’s brother, Nathaniel, who had been reported missing.

Authorities allege the two men are responsible for the deaths of Constables Matthew Arnold and Rachel McCrow. A neighbour, 58-year-old Alan Dare, was also shot and killed.

This led to a six-hour standoff between the brothers, Gareth’s wife and Queensland’s Special Operations Police.

Eventually, the three individuals were taken out, bringing the incident’s death toll to six.

Carroll has vowed to “get to the bottom” of the situation. 

“Certainly in the next couple of weeks we will get a real sense as to why this occurred,” she said. 

“It’s a tough time, these are dark days. It will take us a while to get over this. Particularly, for the officers involved in this.”