“Our family is aware that my brother Richard has been arrested. First and foremost, we are relieved that no one was physically harmed,” the statement said.
“To be clear, it’s no secret that Richard has been battling severe mental health issues for many years,” it continued. “He has been livestreaming, what I’ll call, his altered self on social media for anyone to witness. Unfortunately, securing the proper care and support for him has proven incredibly difficult — or rather, impossible. As a result, none of this is as shocking as it should be.”
Pat Tillman Jr. was killed in Afghanistan in 2004 when members of his U.S. platoon fired on him and an Afghan militia member, mistaking them for enemy fighters. The U.S. government subsequently attempted to cover up the truth about the killing, including instructing an officer to lie to the soldier’s family about the circumstances of his death.
At the time, Richard Tillman told ESPN he didn’t believe the story that the military told of his older brother’s death.
“I remember talking to my mom about it,” he said. “‘You know what? This is shady.’ It didn’t really go much further than that because you can’t, really. … So it is more a hindsight that you saw something weird. But we did verbalize it — that is for sure.”
In recent years, Tillman often livestreamed on his YouTube account from behind the wheel of a parked car. He referred to himself as a god by the name of “Yeshua,” railed against the government and addressed posts to Taylor Swift as “Sweet Divine Soulmate Baby.”
In a video uploaded five days before the crash — which also has since been removed — Tillman went on a profanity-laced diatribe about getting retribution for wrongs against him, referring to “Richard Tillman” as a past version of himself whom he was seeking vengeance for, one that no longer existed as he became “Yeshua.”
In that video, he alluded to doing “something” in the next few months, or as early as a few weeks.
“Uh, but don’t worry. I’m not going to harm anyone physically. So there’s nothing to worry about,” he said, laughing to himself. “Absolutely marvelous. You guys will find out what I’m laughing about one day.”
YouTube has not yet responded to a request from KQED to address a report that Tillman livestreamed the crash.
Other posts on Tillman’s Facebook page are often accompanied by captions with conspiratorial and persecutorial tones.
On May 6, 2023, Tillman posted a picture of himself on Facebook with the caption directed to “people in the postal service game” who were allegedly not delivering him his packages, such as hats and necklaces. He wrote: “So to any wives, or family members, of postal workers that start to see their family is dropping dead for no reason, understand they’re absolutely is a reason they did not follow their oath and they did not deliver the mail to The Most High God’s Son.”
Norfleet, the postal inspector, said there has been a question of whether the suspect “broadcast this when he was doing it, or may have made statements somewhere on social media, talking about what plans might have been for this event.”
Tillman’s posts also denounced the “Hollywood elite” and politicians. In May 2023, he posted: “Oh and Fresno /Clovis police, I am not suicidal, so don’t bother coming near my house because of this post. I am perfectly fine” followed by the laughing/crying emoji.
Another post that month includes a picture of him smiling, sitting on a bench with a bicycle next to him: “Keep spying, I love it! It’s an absolute joy to hunt the hunters! I eat cowards as a snack, and you are all cowards … Bill Clinton, George Bush, Mark Zuckerberg and the rest of you subhumans will reap what you sow, and I’ll be smiling and laughing the whole way through!”
In January 2024, Tillman posted a video of himself playing with his two sons on Facebook with the caption: “My family and the government said I’m a threat to my kids. … This video shows why family and government can be completely wrong and worthless.”
