‘No credible sightings’ of Waffle House shooting suspect as manhunt continues, police say
Police continued their intensive search Monday for the 29-year-old suspected of opening fire at a Tennessee Waffle House and killing four people one day earlier.
The Metro Nashville Police Department said early Monday that “there have been no credible sightings” of the suspected gunman, Travis Reinking, after an overnight search by local, state and federal law enforcement officers.
Reinking, police said, was last seen Sunday morning behind his apartment complex.
. . . .
Months before Reinking became the target of a manhunt, authorities arrested him for trying to breach a barrier near the White House and later seized his guns.
Among the four weapons they took from Reinking was the AR-15 semiautomatic rifle that police say he used in the Waffle House on Sunday.
One of the other weapons — a pistol — is missing from Reinking’s apartment, police said.
Reinking was trying to meet President Trump when he attempted to cross a security barrier at the White House complex in July, federal authorities said.
After an investigation by the FBI office in Springfield, Ill. — near where Reinking lived at the time — state and local officials confiscated Reinking’s guns and revoked his firearm license.
The guns, however, were later returned to Reinking’s father, who has acknowledged he gave them back to his son, officials said.
Under Illinois law, certain confiscated guns can be released to a family member, but Reinking could not lawfully possess the weapons in that state. It’s unclear whether possessing the weapons was illegal in Tennessee.
. . . .
Authorities say the gunman, wearing nothing but a green jacket, opened fire at the Waffle House restaurant in Antioch, Tenn., a suburb southeast of Nashville, just before 3:30 a.m. Sunday.
He had been sitting in his pickup truck at the Waffle House for a few minutes, looking around, before he got out and immediately began shooting at customers in the parking lot, Metropolitan Nashville Police Department spokesman Don Aaron said.
The man kept shooting as he walked inside, shattering the restaurant’s glass windows.
At one point, he stopped, presumably to reload.
That’s when police say a customer, James Shaw Jr., lunged at the gunman, wrestled the weapon away from him and tossed it over the counter.
. . . .
The gunman fled the scene, cursing, Shaw said.
Police said he took off the only article of clothing he was wearing less than a block from the restaurant.
Two magazines were found in the jacket’s pockets.
. . . .
“You balance the rights of people to have this privacy, but on the other hand, there needs to be a coordinated effort, especially in terms of mental health issues, to make sure that weapons don’t fall into their hands,” Metro Nashville Police Chief Steve Anderson told reporters at a news conference Sunday.
He added that police suspect mental issues may have played a role in the Waffle House shooting, although the motive remains unknown.
Ya think?
USA Today says he's a "sovereign citizen".
Perfect.
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