{"id":10422,"date":"2026-04-24T02:10:36","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T02:10:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/ex-police-arrested-for-mass-shooting-plan\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T02:10:36","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T02:10:36","slug":"ex-police-arrested-for-mass-shooting-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/ex-police-arrested-for-mass-shooting-plan\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-Police Arrested for Mass Shooting Plan"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

\n\tAuthorities say a former North Carolina law enforcement officer planned to kill Black people in a mass shooting at a major New Orleans festival but was arrested at a Florida hotel with a handgun and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.<\/p>\n

\n\tAuthorities in several states did not name the event, but the\u00a0New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, commonly known as Jazz Fest, runs from Thursday (April 23) through May 3. The gathering attracted about 460,000 people last year, organizers said.<\/p>\n

\n\tChristopher Gillum of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, was wanted for \u201cterroristic threats,\u201d the Okaloosa County Sheriff\u2019s Office in Florida posted online Thursday. Federal authorities told the sheriffs office that Gillum was in the Florida Panhandle \u201cheading to do a mass shooting at a large festival in Louisiana.\u201d The sheriffs office did not name the federal agency, and the FBI office in New Orleans did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Okaloosa sheriff\u2019s office said Gillum was arrested without incident Wednesday night at a hotel in Destin, and posted a photo of him being led away in handcuffs. Deputies recovered a handgun and about 200 rounds of ammunition from the hotel room, the statement said.<\/p>\n

\n\tGillum was arrested as a fugitive from justice and will be extradited to Louisiana to face charges there, the sheriff\u2019s office said. It was not immediately known if he had a lawyer. The Associated Press<\/em> left a message at phone numbers listed for him.<\/p>\n

\n\tGillum\u2019s family reported him missing on Tuesday and he had a history of self-harm, according to Lt. Clint Lyons of the Alamance County Sheriff\u2019s Office in North Carolina. Gillum\u2019s family told law enforcement he had a gun and \u201cexpressed recent threats to harm \u2018Black people,\u2019\u201d according to a bulletin from police in Burlington, North Carolina.<\/p>\n

\n\tLyons said Gillum crossed state lines before his agency could prepare the paperwork to involuntarily commit him to psychiatric treatment. Lyons said that there were no criminal grounds to detain Gillum despite his comments about Black people \u201cbecause there was no victim.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBut we felt that there was definitely something there that needed to be shared, so that\u2019s what we did,\u201d Lyons said.<\/p>\n

\n\tGillum was located and stopped by law enforcement in Oklaloosa County on Wednesday, according to Lyons and the Burlington police bulletin.<\/p>\n

\n\tHowever, Gillum \u201cdid not present any grounds for involuntary commitment or criminal charges\u201d and was allowed to continue on his way, the bulletin stated. Gillum told officers that he was \u201cen route to New Orleans,\u201d the report added.<\/p>\n

\n\tOkaloosa deputies were initially asked to make a \u201cwelfare check\u201d on Gillum on Wednesday morning and were \u201cnot aware\u201d of any threats he had made, sheriff spokesperson Michele Nicholson said. Later that day, after the sheriff\u2019s office learned Gillum was being investigated, deputies surveilled him until a signed warrant arrived from Louisiana, she added.<\/p>\n

\n\tGillum had been hired as a detention officer by the sheriff\u2019s office in Orange County, North Carolina, in October 2023 but he left in July 2024, department spokesperson Alicia L. Stemper said.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe hired him again as a deputy on Jan. 13, 2025,\u201d she said in an email. \u201cHe resigned his position on Sept. 21, 2025, and we terminated him accordingly.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tGillum also served as a sworn police officer for Chapel Hill from 2004 until his resignation in 2019, town communications manager Alex Carrasquillo said.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHe returned as a non-sworn employee in 2024 before leaving for another job by the end of that year,\u201d Carrasquillo said in an email.<\/p>\n

\n\tLouisiana State Police spokesperson Trooper Danny Berrincha said the agency is still investigating the episode with the FBI.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAt this time, there are no known direct threats to any festivals in Louisiana,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a statement, the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival said it works closely with law enforcement and applauded their efforts, saying \u201dwe look forward to another safe and joyful Jazz Fest.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Authorities say a former North Carolina law enforcement officer planned to kill Black people in a mass shooting at a major New Orleans festival but was arrested at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10423,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2003,7804,801,743,2735],"class_list":["post-10422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-arrested","tag-expolice","tag-mass","tag-plan","tag-shooting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10422\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}