Authorities have identified the suspected sniper who killed two firemen and injured a third in an ambush assault in Idaho.
Wess Roley’s body was discovered beside his firearm at the scene of a fire he reportedly caused on Sunday afternoon, a law enforcement official told CNN on Monday.
Kootenai County Sheriff Robert Norris said during a press conference on Sunday that it’s unclear if a police gunshot killed him or if he committed suicide. The two firemen slain in the alleged ambush on Canfield Mountain, just north of Coeur d’Alene, have yet to be recognized.
A third firefighter was “fighting for his life” after being injured by a gunshot but is currently in stable condition. As of Monday morning, the fire at Canfield Mountain had spread to 26 acres, and a cloud of smoke was still visible in the region.
CNN’s Julia Vargas Jones is in Coeur d’Alene and reports that smoke is still hanging over the mountain and the taste of ash lingers in the air. The brush fire has spread overnight, and investigators say a suspect purposefully started it before opening fire on responding firefighters, killing two and wounding three.
The Nettleton Gulch Fire is still burning and has increased to 26 acres, up from 15 to 20 acres on Sunday evening, according to the Idaho Department of Lands.
Firefighters are dealing with difficult terrain, the organization stated Sunday, with multiple snags and steep sections to cross as they work.
Investigators are likely trying to figure out why the Idaho suspect ignited a brush fire before firing at arriving firemen in what officials call a staged ambush, a former intelligence source told CNN.
“Right now, behind the scenes, there’s a lot of work going on to really understand who this individual is and what motivated them to carry out this attack,” Shawn Turner, former United States national intelligence communications director, said Monday.
First, investigators will be looking at “whether or not there was some sort of tension, some sort of strife or conflict between local law enforcement and this individual,” Turner said.
The ambush appears to have been “a fairly complex attack where he intended to harm more people than he did,” Turner said.
“I listened to that, and I could hear in their voices the kind of tension that I would hear under very stressful situations in the military,” Turner said.
Coeur d’Alene residents lined the roads on Sunday to memorialize two firemen who were slain in an ambush while responding to a fire. The march of firemen from Kootenai Health to Spokane, Washington, drew a big crowd from the neighborhood.
“It was very moving to see all the people that came out. They just kept coming out. Even after the procession was done, people kept coming out,” Bill Buley, assistant managing editor for of the Coeur d’Alene Press, told CNN’s MJ Lee.
According to Buley, several people stood silently, waving flags or comforting one another while a stream of automobiles drove by.
“I think a lot of people were hit hard to think that this could happen — to their firefighters, the front-line guys, who are there to protect them,” Buley said. “Coeur d’Alene is a pretty small community. People know who these front-line guys are and hold them with a great amount of respect. So when this happened, I think a lot of people were really shaken and just really wanted to come out and show their support for the firefighters and for their families.”