A former soldier who threatened to shoot his way onto Fort Irwin to kill soldiers there is facing federal charges of making interstate threats after being arrested in the northern California town of Petaluma.

Christian Beyer, 41, was arrested and booked into Sonoma County jail on Wednesday after Petaluma police received a call about a disturbance at a home that Federal authorities said belonged to his father. Beyer had slipped away from police two days earlier about 50 miles north, when he was confronted by sheriff’s officers in the wine country town of Hopland, but escaped on foot.

Beyer was a sergeant first class at the end of his service, according to his service record released to Task & Purpose. He was an armor crewman in the Army from August 2000 to March 2023. He deployed to Iraq three times, including during the initial invasion in April 2003, and to Kuwait twice.

The FBI had been searching for Beyer over a series of YouTube videos in which he threatened to shoot his way onto Fort Irwin and kill specific soldiers.

[Oh, he doesn’t look crazy at all. Guess they felt they’d better snatch someone up after the Lewiston shootings that shouldn’t have happened. Are they running out of J-6 types to haul out of Alabama? ~ Beege]