{"id":17779,"date":"2017-05-24T22:46:54","date_gmt":"2017-05-25T04:46:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=17779"},"modified":"2017-05-24T22:49:38","modified_gmt":"2017-05-25T04:49:38","slug":"son-of-man-who-killed-deputy-saw-growth-of-extreme-views","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2017\/05\/son-of-man-who-killed-deputy-saw-growth-of-extreme-views\/","title":{"rendered":"Son of man held in deputy’s death saw growth of extreme views"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Lloyd\"<\/a>

Lloyd Barrus<\/p><\/div>\n

The son of the accused killer of a Broadwater County sheriff\u2019s deputy said the racist and extremist views of his father and half-brother had been simmering for years, starting with signs of violence and domestic abuse before escalating to threats against state authorities.<\/p>\n

In a letter<\/a> sent to the Montana Human Rights Network\u00a0on Wednesday\u00a0and shared with the Missoula Current, Al Barrus, the estranged son of Lloyd Barrus and half-brother to Marshall Barrus, said his father\u2019s anti-government views built to a crescendo last week, leading them to gun down Deputy Mason Moore during a nighttime traffic stop.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were a series of behaviors that should serve as warning signs,\u201d Al said in his letter. \u201cLloyd was a domestic abuser. I thank God every day for my mother\u2019s strength and courage to leave Lloyd in Anchorage in 1989.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the help of police officers and a women\u2019s shelter, Al Barrus said his mother snuck away with him and his four sisters in the middle of the night to escape the abusive Lloyd. However, his half-brothers, including Marshall and Jeffery, were not so lucky, since they were not his mother\u2019s children.<\/p>\n

Marshall was killed by Montana police officers shortly after murdering Moore last week while Jeffery is in prison for a 2000 incident, during which he shot down a police helicopter in California.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring the 1990s, Lloyd kept my brothers from attending public school, and over time they fell under his bad influence,\u201d Al Barrus said. \u201cMy dad did not pay child support to us after we left. He evaded the state\u2019s attempts to hold him accountable for his parenting responsibilities.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div>Al Barrus said his father subscribed to right-wing conspiracy theories and became obsessed with guns. He blamed his problems on a wide range of groups, including liberals, feminists, gays and minority groups, such as African-Americans, Hispanics and Muslims.\u00a0He also had a penchant for Nazi Germany.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe peddled the idea that the government was the enemy who couldn\u2019t be trusted,\u201d Al said. \u201cHe believed himself a vigilante, but he was really a false patriot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rachel Carroll Rivas, co-director of the Montana Human Rights Network, said Al Barrus reached out to her organization after it brought Christian Picciolini, a former neo-Nazi skinhead, to the state to speak about the dangers of racism and other radical far-right views.<\/p>\n

Al Barrus, who contacted Picciolini after seeing similarities in his own situation, has apologized for the actions of his father and stepbrother, and looks to warn others about the simmering dangers held by the radical fringe.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a reminder that this is a dangerous movement,\u201d Rivas said. \u201cDuring the Bundy standoff, multiple folks from Montana and Oregon turned out to be major players. The Oath Keepers are related as well. It\u2019s part of this movement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last year, along with images of Nazi Germany, Lloyd posted an image of the armed Oath Keepers standing around a Vietnam-era helicopter. It\u2019s currently unknown if Lloyd was a member of the group, though his Facebook postings run to the right and include \u201cThe Ten Planks of the Communist Manifesto,\u201d photos of armed men, and praise for President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

Rivas said the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks the anti-government movement, has reported a national decrease among militias and so-called patriot groups, with Montana being the only exception.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only place where that wasn\u2019t the case was in Montana,\u201d Rivas said. \u201cWhile the white supremacist movement is incredibly concerning to me, in some ways\u2013in terms of violence \u2013 I have major concerns about the anti-government and militia movement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Al Barrus said he became more concerned about his father\u2019s online actions a few weeks ago as his postings threatening violence against the state began to increase. He\u00a0called his half-brother, Marshall, who was attempting to stay sober and work.<\/p>\n

Al Barrus said his brother relapsed when Lloyd drove to Montana.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to take the anti-government militia movement and white supremacy threat more seriously,\u201d Al Barrus said. \u201cThe popularity of these movements right now, like the white supremacist alt-right, is a serious concern. These hateful ideas can quickly lead to violence. I hope I can bring this to attention in some little way.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The son of the accused killer of a Broadwater County sheriff\u2019s deputy said the racist and extremist views of his father and half-brother had been simmering for years, starting with signs of violence and domestic abuse before escalating to threats against state authorities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":97,"featured_media":17780,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,14],"tags":[5885,5884,5886],"class_list":["post-17779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-montana","category-news","tag-human-rights-network","tag-lloyd-barrus","tag-mason-moore","prominence-category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/97"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17779"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17782,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17779\/revisions\/17782"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}