The suspect in an early Sunday Waffle House shooting in Nashville, in which four people died, was arrested last year for being in a restricted area near the White House, Tennessee authorities said.
Travis Reinking, a 29-year-old who police have named as the suspect, was arrested by Secret Service officers on July 7, 2017, when he refused to leave the White House grounds, Politico reported.
According to Todd Hudson, special agent in charge, U.S. Secret Service in the Nashville Field Office, the suspect was not armed at the time of the White House incident. Hudson added that Reinking was only in the White House complex area because he wanted a meeting with the President, but he did not make it farther into the grounds.
Following the incident, Reinking’s firearms were seized and were later released to his father. They included an AR-15 rifle, used in Sunday’s shooting, which the father admitted he had returned to his son.
Reinking opened fire at a Waffle House in Antioch, Tennessee, around 3:25 a.m. local time on Sunday, killing three customers and one employee, The Wall Street Journal informs.
The attacker was stopped and prevented from killing or wounding more people by a Waffle House customer, 29-year-old James Shaw Jr., who wrestled over the firearm with Reinking. Shaw took the opportunity to grab the gun from him and throw it over the counter when the gunman was reloading.
He later said that his actions were driven by “selfish” reasons, as his intention was to save himself.
“I did save other people, but I don’t want people to think that I was the Terminator or Superman or anybody like that,” Shaw told reporters. “I figured if I was going to die, he was gonna have to work for it.”
Metropolitan Nashville Police Department Chief Steve Anderson warned residents that Reinking remained at large and that police were continuing to sweep the area. Police said that a man believed to be Reinking was last seen in a wooded area near an apartment complex not far from the Waffle House.
Be the first to comment