Ex-Turnstile Guitarist Brady Ebert Deemed Incompetent To Stand Trial For Attempted Murder

A Circuit Court judge in Montgomery County, Maryland has ruled that founding Turnstile guitarist Brady Ebert is not competent to face trial on his attempted murder charges. In April, the 34-year-old Ebert was charged with using his car to intentionally run over William Yates, the 79-year-old father of Turnstile frontman Brendan Yates. Earlier this month, Circuit Judge Eric Johnson ordered a competency evaluation to determine whether he could properly understand the charges against him and assist in his own defense. On Tuesday, Circuit Judge Karla Smith ruled that Ebert is mentally incompetent and a danger to himself and others.Since his arrest, Brady Ebert has maintained that he committed no crimes and that he acted out of "pure self-defense." At the hearing where Judge Johnson ordered a competency evaluation, Ebert insisted that he's "perfectly competent" and that he plans to fire his attorney Mark Sobel, claiming that he believes Sobel is working with prosecutors. As the Baltimore Banner reports, Ebert is now in the custody of the Maryland Department Of Health, and there will be a new hearing to reevaluate his competency on Jan. 19.According to the Baltimore Banner, Judge Smith did not allow Ebert to speak on his own behalf at yesterday's hearing after she found him incompetent. Ebert still "began shouting," claiming that he'd already fired Sobel — "I don’t know why he is here today" — calling his case "an extreme miscarriage of justice" and claiming that police got their arrest warrant illegally. He continued to shout as police escorted him out of the courtroom. Ebert's father attended the hearing, but Sobel didn't comment on his behalf.Ebert will now have to go through a process of competency restoration, which involves treatment and education. Often, that process results in a longer period of incarceration. At the hearing Sobel spoke about his "significant concerns" regarding Ebert's mental state, saying, "Hopefully, he’ll get the proper treatment for his competency to be restored, so we can proceed to trial in this case." You can read the Baltimore Banner report here.Brady Ebert and Brendan Yates were childhood friends who played in teenage hardcore bands together and who formed Turnstile in 2010. Ebert parted ways with Turnstile in 2022. In a statement after his arrest, Turnstile said that they fired him "in response to a consistent pattern of harmful behavior affecting himself, the band, and the community" and that he persistently threatened them with violence in the years that followed.