When speaking with William Yates at MedStar Washington Hospital Center following the attack, police learned that this was just one in a long string of many Ebert-related incidents the family has undergone since the guitarist was kicked from the band. Additionally, William claimed that, while he was lying in the front yard awaiting an ambulance, Ebert returned to the scene of the crime and began screaming that he “deserved it.” Ebert was arrested on March 31, two days after the incident, and is currently being held without bail.
In hindsight, it seems fairly obvious that Ebert has been on a downward spiral in recent months: he launched a new hardcore band earlier this year, The S.E.T. (“self evident truth”), but was fired from the lineup before its first EP came out. He raked TURNSTILE over the coals in January for having the gall to post an “abolish ICE” graphic on Instagram, claiming that “no one in Turnstile cares at all about ethics or social issues in general. They’re just pandering to their audience.” He went on to say that the band once raised $10k for charity at a show, but Brendan Yates later stole $4k of it to “pay the merch bill,” a claim Ebert didn’t believe. (For whatever it’s worth, TURNSTILE released a statement following their Grammy wins calling out “heightened state violence” and reiterating their commitment to fighting fascism and injustice.)
Ebert also commented on his contentious exit from the group, and, well, it’s perhaps best to let his writing speak for itself: “Also my friends filed a restraining order and guess what, they had two laywers [sic] with them abd [sic] I showed up to court bt [sic] myself and the judge DENIED the restraining order because there was no statute in the laws about what qualifies for a restraining order that they were able to meet the requirements of. In other words they had no reason to file it and it was all over text messages which they showed the judge and the judge agreed with me without me even having to testify so next time before u spread bullshit misinformation say that shit to my face.” But considering Ebert seemingly just tried to murder his ex-bandmate’s father, I’d say that restraining order was likely more than warranted.
TURNSTILE has released a statement on the incident, which can be read in full below:
“Turnstile cut ties with Brady Ebert in 2022 in response to a consistent pattern of harmful behavior affecting himself, the band, and the community. After exhausting every available resource to support his access to help and recovery, a boundary ultimately had to be set when healthy communication was no longer possible and he began threatening violence. In the years since, his baseless tirades have continued in public. We never addressed it. We chose to protect his privacy and the circumstances around his departure, even when he did nothing to be deserving of that protection. Over the past few months, his threats only escalated further. This past week, that violence led to a physical attack when Brady went to the house of Brendan’s parents and used his vehicle to run over Brendan’s father, causing severe physical trauma. We are grateful that Mr. Yates survived, has successfully undergone surgery, and we’re hoping for the best possible outcome in his recovery. We have no language left for Brady. Please respect our privacy in this time.”
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