BREAKING: Murder suspect Travis Reinking is in custody. Arrested moments ago. pic.twitter.com/WwuDCXDCGQ
— Metro Nashville PD (@MNPDNashville) April 23, 2018
The Waffle House shooting suspect was arrested behind the apartment complex where he was last seen, CNN’s Nick Valencia reports. https://t.co/1sy845br66
— Meg Wagner (@megwagner) April 23, 2018
Astonishingly (not), the guy who (allegedly) murdered four people of color was apprehended with no injuries other than to his dignity. From the Washington Post:
… The announcement came nearly 34 hours after the eruption of violence in the Waffle House, the latest public place suddenly consumed by blood and terror after a volley of gunfire. A little more than an hour before taking him into custody, police had acknowledged having “no confirmed sightings” of him and saying they were not even sure if he remained in the area.
That changed suddenly when police received a tip that someone matching Reinking’s description was seen heading into a wooded area about a mile from the Waffle House. Detectives marched into the wooden area and found Reinking, who was taken into custody without any incident, they said. When he was captured, police said Reinking was wearing a backpack that held a semiautomatic firearm as well ammunition.
Even with the suspected shooter alive and in police custody, what could have motivated the massacre remained frustratingly unknown, authorities said. Reinking requested a lawyer after his arrest and refused to answer questions or make a statement, Don Aaron, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department, said at a news briefing.
While Reinking was at large, police had warned he was dangerous and said he showed “signs of significant instability,” Aaron had said at a news briefing earlier Monday…
Last year, police records show that Reinking went to a local pool in Illinois wearing a pink dress and swam in his underwear while coaxing life guards to fight him. Soon after, he traveled to the nation’s capital and tried to cross a security barrier near the White House, declaring himself a “sovereign citizen” who wanted to speak with President Trump.
After an investigation by the FBI office in Springfield, Ill., state and local officials confiscated Reinking’s guns and revoked his firearm license in August. The weapons were given to Reinking’s father, who agreed to keep them secure and away from Reinking, officials said. But the father later acknowledged giving the weapons back to his son, police said, who had moved to Tennessee.
Under Illinois law, certain confiscated guns can be released to a family member, but Reinking could not lawfully possess the weapons in that state. Matthew E. Espenshade, assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s Memphis division, on Monday said that “every federal resource was brought to bear” in Reinking’s case after his arrest at the White House and the FBI assessment…
More recently, police said, Reinking had stolen a BMW from a dealership in suburban Nashville just four days before the Waffle House shooting. He eluded police officers who later recovered the vehicle at his apartment complex…
Not to minimize the genuine tragedy of an unprepared family attempting to cope with mental illness, but HOLY TRICKSTER GOD can you imagine someone other than a white man pulling stunts like this without significant repercussions? And, yes, I truly hope his old man faces serious charges for handing weapons of mass murder back to a ‘loved one’ he certainly knew wasn’t capable of ‘using them safely’!
Waffle House suspect Travis Reinking deemed himself a 'sovereign citizen,' part of anti-government group https://t.co/JqcpoMG9QH
— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) April 23, 2018
Anyone who says his antisocial delusions are separate from his ideology has clearly not read up on many sovereigns. https://t.co/PswQ8t2PYc
— Zeddy (@Zeddary) April 23, 2018
I would note that Homeland Security warned us about these white nationalist groups as terrorist organizations in 2009 and Michele Malkin and Brit Hume lost their shit – claiming that Obama was "silencing dissent" by calling conservatives terrorists. https://t.co/hSEFXrTExh
— Frances Langum (@bluegal) April 23, 2018
efgoldman
If he’d been of dusky hue, he’d be dead,
dnfree
It appeared to me that the people shot at the Waffle House were all people of color (and the man who tackled him appears to be African-American). So my question is whether the shooter was targeting people “randomly” or targeting people of color specifically.
Yutsano
It would be nice if we just ended trial by cop for every suspect. There has to be better policing methods than terror by white guy with a badge.
Roger Moore
And just in case he didn’t have a lick of common sense, the authorities made his father promise not to give him his guns back as a condition of releasing them to him. He deserves to be charged as an accomplice.
bystander
Kos’s title American Taliban was on the money.
Roger Moore
@Yutsano:
This. The problem isn’t that the armed white guy was apprehended without incident; it’s that the police can’t manage the same when a person of color is involved. While I don’t think anyone meant otherwise, it’s good to make that point explicit.
JPL
@dnfree: Antioch is about 40 percent white, so it is not known whether it was targeted. Since the person has espoused certain beliefs, it wouldn’t surprise me.
Cacti
OTOH, I heard he wasn’t armed with any Skittles.
Anne Laurie
@dnfree:
“Defense” I’ve seen so far is that it was a Waffle House in a low-income area. (Unlike all those Waffle Houses, I assume, that are situated handy to upscale gated communities in Tennessee.) We’re gonna find out more about what passed this deluded schmuck for ‘thoughts’, but it’s still an open question whether he was explicitly aiming for that extra all-Amurkin racist aura, or just going where he thought he could do the most damage at 3am on a Sunday morning.
The cops’ reactions, on the other hand, were most certainly part of our inbaked assumptions about which skin tones make a suspect “dangerous”.
Schlemazel
Well, to be fair, sov cits are all deeply mentally impaired. If you have not seen them go to YouTube and search be sure to have alcohol on hand and no sharp objects nearby, you will need the former and would willingly use the latter after about 5 minutes of them.
West of the Rockies
@efgoldman:
Damn straight. Had he been a black person in his own back yard with his own phone in his hand, he’d be on a slab in the morgue.
germy
germy
@Anne Laurie: He had to leave his gated community to visit the low-income Waffle House.
Anne Laurie
@Schlemazel: Or just go read JJMcNab’s twitter feed on domestic terrorists in America.
West of the Rockies
@Cacti:
Hey, now… Skittles, properly flung, can take an eye, uh, can slightly sting.
efgoldman
@dnfree:
Doesn’t matter worth shit, to them or their families.
Barbara
@germy: Their theory is that if he had a gun there never would have needed to be a manhunt. Basically, it is a call to vigilante justice. And if Reinking hadn’t had a gun four people would still be alive. I kind of think that’s more relevant than the fact that police resources were needed to capture the guy.
Elizabelle
I suspect the guy is seriously mentally ill, along with his horrible ideology. Think of the asshat who shot up Gabrielle Giffords’ meetup. Jared Loughner? Makes me sad we remember the shooters’ names, but not the victims.
The big takeaways from this one: he was shooting up people of color**, he was pretty much nude while doing it (!), and that he was armed at all. He did not belong around firearms. Period.
I hope his father is charged as an accessory and/or sued out of existence by the Waffle House victims’ families. We know of three times Travis got his guns back from his father, who was apparently “safeguarding” them. Did the son steal them back, or was he handed them? Shame, shame, shame. This father should have realized his son was too unstable. It’s pathetic that gun owners actually have more rights than a community’s citizens rights to live safely.
** and Loughner chose to shoot up a Democratic woman’s meet and greet. That always gets explained away, even though the shooter is mentally ill. I don’t think that was an accident. The Wasillabilly had been running her mouth and employing targets as images; these shooters live in the same toxic current events environment that all of us do.
kindness
I’m wondering if the families that have victims can sue the father for giving back the guns. I can’t see why not but don’t know.
MJS
I wonder which area fast food joint the cops stopped at on their way to taking the suspect to jail. He must have been hungry, being on the run for 34 hours.
Nicole
Obviously I would always prefer a suspect be apprehended and face the legal system. But I can’t wrap my head around being in a country where a young black man gets shot in his own back yard while holding a cell phone, and a young white man who shot four people, identified as armed and dangerous, gets apprehended without incident.
Mike J
New filings in US v Papadopoulos, US v Manafort and US v Gates if anybody has a PACER account. Looks like some half of them are just deadlines, etc. Probably all procedural stuff, but it would be nice to check ’em.
chris
OT but damn
japa21
I am just thankful our President sent out a tweet lauding the hero, who wrestled the gun away from the shooter. Oh, wait…he didn’t?
ruemara
@dnfree: The only thing random was probably the day he chose to do it.
@Nicole: Why? We had political terror event with the murder of 9 people in Mother Emmanuel Church, one of which was a state legislator, and the cops stopped to get the race war inciter terrorist a burger & fries. That’s fucking America.
Between these murders and the cops molesting a black woman at another Waffle House, I’m already at my limit for cops, white folks using the police as their personal slavecatcher squad and Taylor Swift covers of R&B classics. Gonna hit the seltzer water hard tonight.
japa21
@Barbara: They always forget that fact. Arming teachers, etc., may stop the shooter from killing 20 people. Maybe only 10 would be shot up. Too bad for the 10, but hey, 10 lived who wouldn’t have otherwise. Makes me sick.
Mary G
When I read that James Shaw, Jr. had thrown the rifle he took away from this nutcase over the counter of the Waffle House, I couldn’t help but feel relieved, because the cops would have shot him when they arrived if he was holding it. American citizens should not have to live like this.
Elizabelle
@Mary G: I thought James Shaw had such presence of mind. Courage. And then he turns out to be modest too. Lovely guy.
@Nicole: I know. No words. Although, I do think that double standard is getting noticed, more and more.
Mandalay
o/t After spending the past few weeks plausibly telling us what a complete disaster Pompeo would be as SoS, Rand “spine-of-a-jellyfish” Paul has decided that he will support him.
The Moar You Know
@Elizabelle: I do not believe to this day that Loughner was in any way mentally ill. He had no history of it. Someone did not want him testifying in an open forum about his motivations and they succeeded.
This assclown does have a history of it, unfortunately. His dad should get charged with murder as an accessory.
Kay
We have sovereign citizens here and they’re getting markedly crazier and more overt. I don’t know how familiar people are with this as a “movement” but cut thru all the boring bullshit and the ideology says they don’t have to follow laws. That’s the entire basis of the ideology- laws don’t apply to me.
Schlemazel
@japa21:
I am surprised the cops didn’t arrest him – a black man physically assaulted a white youth and is allowed to just walk free? What is this country coming to?
Nicole
@ruemara: No, you’re right; and I, like a majority of white folk, was cheerfully ignorant of how violent police bias is for most of my life. But you’re right; this is America and has been since its inception. And it’s infuriating and wrong and disgusting that our refusal to really look at the history of slavery in our nation continues to manifest in violence against fellow Americans.
I do hope that the advent of video cameras in phones will assist in pushing forth change. I think, if the government had had any foresight as to what a video recorder in the hands of the majority of private citizens could do, they’d have banned them back then, but the horse is, thankfully, out of the barn on that one.
Kay
We’ve had sovereign citizens around since the 1990’s here locally – the “Michigan militia” types were locals here- but they were never as aggressive as they are now, not even in Peak Clinton Hysteria years.
The Trumpsters are a whole new ball game. We had one threaten a probate court clerk the other day- just as brazen as could be in a courthouse crawling with law enforcement. They don’t give a shit.
Mnemosyne
@Nicole:
He shot 6 people. He killed 4, and 2 more are still in the hospital with serious injuries.
Schlemazel
@Nicole:
While they have never been clean cops have gotten much worse in the last couple of decades. There is a concerted effort on the part of the III percenters to take control of the police and also the military. Religious crackpots are rife in the military academies.
Just One More Canuck
@chris: a guy in a rented van drove into a crowd of people in a very busy area of Toronto – the CBC just showed some video of the arrest – the amazing part was that the video showed people coming out of a building in the background just looking around casually while the arrest was happening
Mandalay
@Mary G:
They’re probably working out how to charge him for careless use of a firearm.
ruemara
@Kay: No, they don’t. Because they won. It’s not just Trump. Our liberal media fawns over them. Our pundits present their bigotry, violence and hatreds as reasonable opposing views. The judges they want are being installed. When they commit crimes, they may (MAY) go to jail for a bit, but the juries of their foul peers acquit them. At what point is there a consequence? The race war these Turner Diaries cosplayers want is already happening, just with cops starting it and if POC & other minorities act up in defense, we’ll go to jail or the grave first. The lack of consequences for anyone but the victims of these fools has started something dangerous in motion.
@Nicole: Not to be that negative nelly, but too much of the response is “Goodness that’s bad. Someone should do something.” End scene. I don’t blame people – much – this is dangerous. But it’s going to take risking danger to do anything. People forget they are the someone who needs to do something.
TenguPhule
@Yutsano:
Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.
TenguPhule
@ruemara:
Arson, murder, jaywalking and squick?
Mnemosyne
@Kay:
I was saying in another thread that I still don’t understand why declaring oneself a “sovereign citizen” is not an automatic 72-hour psychiatric hold to see if the person is planning to act on their violent ideation.
TenguPhule
@Mandalay:
This is my shocked face. I had no idea there was gambling in this establishment. //
JWR
So now it’s ‘refusing to pay 50 cents for plastic utensils and asking for a manager’s contact details to make a complaint’ while being Black that does the trick for racist cops. ~sigh~ I (almost) friggin’ give up…
bluefish
The intersection of extreme mental illness, whack-a-doodle political ideologies, and assault weapon availability keeps me up at night. We simply must do better.
Barbara
@Elizabelle: James Holmes (Aurora, CO) was mentally ill. Among other things, his cognition and grasp of reality deteriorated fairly quickly after he started his graduate program. He clearly had delusions. Loughner seemed to have more of an antisocial personality disorder, a disaffected young man who wanted to do something noteworthy. In that, he was more like Dylann Roof.
Mandalay
@Nicole:
While the trend is in the right direction, not really, not yet, not quite:
ruemara
@TenguPhule: Her cover of “September” is the WHINIEST coffeehouse wench song ever. Can’t say she didn’t completely reinterpret it. It was just a terrible interpretation.
@JWR: If I start screaming I will never stop.
TenguPhule
@Nicole:
This has not stopped police and legislatures from trying to make filming the police a crime.
The horse may have left the barn, but they are determined to get it back in, by gunpoint, if necessary.
Kay
@ruemara:
I agree. People here are a little afraid of them so they get away with a lot. Probate courts really set them off because that’s where judges have huge powers regarding the distribution and oversight of property. If there’s ever an incident regarding our local members it will occur in a or around a probate issue. I’ve sat and watched the digital clock in probate courts while cowed judges allow them half an hour to expound on their whole fucking crackpot “God’s Law” theories. No one else would ever get away with that. We don’t allow it in our office. If they start we cut them off and they back down because I’m clearly implying that if they reach the “threat” stage we’re reporting. Like all bullies they’re cowards. But. You have to stand up to them.
Barbara
@JWR: It’s been a while since I visited a Waffle House or an IHOP but I can’t remember ever being charged for plastic utensils. I used to work in restaurants and when people complained and made a big show of asking for the manager’s information I just gave it to them.
Roger Moore
@JWR:
I think the term you’re looking for is “being uppity”. Any time a black person attempts to stand up for their rights, they may be guilty of being uppity, which can be summarily punished as the officer called to the scene sees fit. They just have to hope that
1) The white person they’re talking to doesn’t feel like punishing them for being uppity or
2) The officer called to the scene doesn’t decide on summary execution as their punishment
Mandalay
@Mandalay:
Heh. Nobody could have predicted that the states where filming the police is a recognized right are almost all blue, and the states where filming the police is not a recognized right are almost all “respect mah authoritah” red.
Mnemosyne
@MJS:
In the Roof case, I could see the cops trying to lure him into a confession by being nice and pretending to be on his side, with the Burger King trip being part of that. But I never heard any claim for that being the reason why they did it so, in this police environment, I unfortunately have to assume the worst of the cops.
Kay
@Mnemosyne:
Oh, it’s hard because there are lots and lots of eccentric people who are harmless. Also- no one is really listening to what they’re saying. There’s this sloughing it off- “THIS shit again” so you sort of get inured to how radical it is.
Judges are sort of clueless about it. They think if they just EXPLAIN it will sink in and we’ll all have this reasonable resolution but they’re not listening to the basis of this ideology. The basis of the ideology is judges don’t have any authority. It’s not a matter of “explaining”. They don’t accept the whole premise of state power. The order may as well be toilet paper. They simply choose not to recognize it as “lawful”.
TenguPhule
@Mnemosyne:
I could only see this if it was ever tried on a non-white person by them.
Funny how that never happens.
ruemara
@Kay: It struck me as I listened to some of the “woke” & “feminist” men discussing Me Too and the attacks on problematic men (their sentiments, not mine). I realized that somewhere within the core of their being, they believed a certain amount of this was part of being a man. There’s a level of solidarity behind the excuse making and the disappointing behaviour often covered with “well, you know, they have some points, we should hear them.” People want an out for shitty behaviour. Just in case. Saying it’s unacceptable, holding people to a basic standard of conduct, means you don’t get to weasel out of your own bad shit.
I know that’s not the nicest understanding to come to, but once that thought blasted into my brain, I got the why of the acquiescence & equivocation that creates a fertile ground for these people. Just my 2¢.
Mary G
@ruemara: All of the stories about these guys making comebacks are nauseous.
Mandalay
@JWR:
And having yanked her top off, they will probably charge her with indecent exposure as well. That woman exhibited incredible grace while being subjected to gratuitous police violence.
Mnemosyne
@Kay:
Well, sure, but I think we have a whole lot of evidence that the “sovereign citizen” people are pretty likely to become violent if things don’t go their way. At this point, I think that using those specific words should be a sign that a person needs to be evaluated for mental illness, and maybe signed up for some anger management courses.
Ruckus
If the fucking shoe fits………
debbie
I’m hoping the authorities are checking into the father’s sovereign citizen credentials. This would explain his returning the weapons to his son.
WereBear
@Kay: The law is set up with penalties that people heed lest there be consequences.
But many don’t care about their reputation or job or whatever. They will bully until they are stopped, like that guy who was terrorizing a town, who was shot, and the whole town has kept quiet about who did it to this day.
Ruckus
@Elizabelle:
To accept the ideology one has to be mental in the first place. It’s like accepting L Ron Hubbard as your savior, but without the tax structure.
Frankensteinbeck
@Kay:
You are correct. “The laws don’t apply to me” is Sovereign Citizenry in a nutshell. It’s worth mentioning that the underlying argument goes back to “because the law freed black people from slavery and that can’t be legitimate.” A whole bunch of them still draw that direct line.
Kay
@ruemara:
Your comment really struck home with me because I have witnessed exactly what you’re talking about – there’s a kowtowing to them, a feeling like if we just let them say their peace they won’t hurt us. It’s been very disappointing to me, seeing it in judges, because judges have a lot of power and they use it rather freely but with these guys I see “acquiescence & equivocation” as you say.
We have a father/son sovereign citizen team that come in to complain that we hold an estate they’re involved in. They’re no longer allowed to speak to the staff up front because they’re disrespectful to them- two women. Now they have to call ahead and tell one of the lawyers they’re coming. They don’t think judges have the power to hold property they will eventually inherit- that’s what they’re upset about. I realized talking to the father about 2 weeks ago that he was carrying under his jacket- gun people hold their arms funny when they’re wearing a shoulder holster. I was really rattled. I got rid of him that time but I don’t know how crazy they are and I don’t know if he’s getting more and more upset.
Ruckus
@Kay:
Between the racism and this it’s obvious why drumpf had the level of support that he had. That and Adam’s post about the FTFNYT.
Ella in New Mexico
“Tazewell County, Illinois, authorities revoked Reinking’s firearm authorization and seized four weapons after the interview. According to a report from the Tazewell County Sheriff’s Office, authorities seized a Kimber 9 mm handgun, a Bushmaster AR-15 style rifle, a CZ-USA .22-caliber rifle, a Remington 710 and random ammunition. The AR-15 style rifle listed was the same weapon used in Sunday’s Waffle House shooting, which killed four people, according to the Metropolitan Nashville Police. Police later returned the seized weapons to Reinking’s father, Jeffrey Reinking, and told him to keep the weapons secure and away from his son. However, Nashville police learned Sunday that Jeffrey acknowledged giving the guns back to his son, police said” https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/22/us/waffle-house-shooter-white-house/index.html
This after multiple interactions with law enforcement over the past few years, and ample evidence he was delusional.
What a stupid son of a bitch.
I want this guy’s father charged as an accessory to murder. I want the victims families to sue him for damages, even if all he owns are a bunch of fucking guns, a case of Yeungling and a mobile home with a leaky roof.
Duane
The Nashville police spokesperson was asked about sov cit connections. Said he didn’t know any thing about it. What the hell. Really?
JWR
@Mandalay:
Amen to that!
JWR
@Barbara:
This is where I begin to think that the employee this woman spoke with should most probably be fired, or otherwise disciplined.
afanasia
@Elizabelle: And funny, too. I hope all the attention he gets for this will be appreciative and admiring.
chris
@Just One More Canuck: Yes, thanks. I had to turn off CBCNW because they’re babbling.
Dman
Canadian policing in action. NO SHOTS FIRED and this suspect just ran a van down main street on Toronto killing 9
https://youtu.be/LA-YD6sTcP4
andy
The only mystery here is why this white boy lacks the customary three names these mass murderers usually have.
Just One More Canuck
@Dman: the Toronto police have had their issues, but this cop was great
NorthLeft12
@Roger Moore: I am struggling to understand the rationale for giving these weapons to the WF Killer’s father. WTF is wrong with the police down there?
How long did they think it would be before the guns got back to his son? What claim can the father have on these weapons? Were they really his to begin with? When I think things have gone absolutely bonkers, it just gets crazier.
NorthLeft12
@Ella in New Mexico: As above, why not sue the cops too? What in the hell did they expect to happen with those weapons?
I mean,”He said he would not give them back to his son….HE LIED TO US!” sounds really, really weak.
opiejeanne
@WereBear: I remember that case. I think it was in Missouri. They all knew who did it but no one would talk.