Folks, I almost spilled my coffee reading this one. A former law enforcement officer, Christopher Gillum, was accused of planning to kill Black people in a mass shooting at a New Orleans festival, and he was quietly released from custody over the summer after a grand jury found there wasn’t enough evidence to charge him with a crime. I mean, what’s the world coming to, right? A Louisiana grand jury in June declined to indict Gillum on a state terrorism charge that could have carried up to a 15-year sentence, court records show. Bless their hearts, I guess they didn’t think he was a big enough threat.
Gillum, who had been held without bond, was released shortly after the grand jury’s decision and is not facing charges in any other jurisdictions, according to his attorney, Dylan Utley. He declined to comment further, which is probably for the best, considering the whole situation is just a big mess. You can’t make this stuff up, folks. The 45-year-old ex-police officer, who is from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, had been arrested in Florida in April with hundreds of rounds of ammunition and a handgun while on his way to Louisiana to commit a mass shooting, according to the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office.
The investigation had involved the FBI and authorities across Louisiana, North Carolina, and Florida. Somewhere in Atlanta, a producer thought this sounded terrifying, and now we’re reading about it in the news. Authorities did not name the event Gillum was allegedly targeting, but his arrest came on the eve of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, which attracts hundreds of thousands of festivalgoers annually. Gillum, who is White, had “expressed recent threats to harm ‘Black people'”, according to authorities. His family had reported him missing in North Carolina and said he had a history of self-harm.
Lester Duhe, a spokesperson for Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, said in a statement that Gillum’s family had taken him “to a treatment facility out of the state” and that he is not facing additional criminal charges. Duhe said there were “several jurisdictional issues” that complicated the case after Gillum was extradited to Louisiana following his arrest. “The threat relayed to a family member actually occurred in North Carolina,” Duhe said. “The defendant never entered the State of Louisiana until after his arrest.” Gillum had been planning to travel to the Florida Keys “during the same period he would have been suspected to travel to Louisiana,” Duhe added.
Gillum was charged under a Louisiana statute for the crime of “terrorizing,” which requires that “a crime of violence is imminent or in progress or that a circumstance dangerous to human life exists or is about to exist.” Jonathan Guidry, the foreperson for the grand jury, declined to comment on the decision to not indict Gillum. Katherine Schweit, a former Chicago prosecutor and FBI executive who ran the agency’s active shooter program, said that thwarted acts of mass violence do not always lead to indictments, but prosecutors often seek an array of criminal charges when possible. “It’s very difficult to convince a jury, or to convince a grand jury, that something might have happened,” Schweit told The Associated Press.
Law enforcement authorities in North Carolina, where Louisiana court records list Gillum as residing, told the AP that they were not aware he had been released from custody. “If we’ve got an individual that was accused of such an action, we would want to know if in fact he did return to Alamance County,” said Byron Tucker, a spokesperson for the Alamance County Sheriff’s Office in North Carolina. The offices of state attorneys general in North Carolina and Florida did not respond to a request for comment about whether Gillum may face additional criminal charges in their jurisdictions. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of Louisiana also did not return messages seeking comment.
In a statement, the FBI New Orleans office said the decision whether to charge Gillum rested with prosecutors. The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival declined to comment, which is probably for the best, considering this whole situation is just a big mess. In conclusion, it’s just another day in the news, folks, where we’re left scratching our heads and wondering what’s going on. And I’m just sitting here, sipping my coffee, thinking, “only in America,” and laughing at the absurdity of it all. 🙄
Armchair patriot. Believes in the free market, cold beer, and that there’s always a guy named George behind every CNN segment.
Former remote-throwing champion turned #1 couch commentator on liberal panic in the media. Born in Texas (or so his mug says), he earned a degree in Fake Newsology & Beer Philosophy from YouTube University.
