Texas Grandma Thwarts Mass Shooting Plot After Man Buys AK-47
April 9, 2020 | News | No Comments
LUBBOCK, TX — A Texas grandmother helped thwart a mass shooting when she learned her grandson bought an AK-47 rifle and was plotting to “shoot up” a local hotel and then commit suicide by police, officials said.
Sensing 19-year-old William Patrick Williams, of Lubbock, was both homicidal and suicidal, the unidentified grandmother convinced him to allow her to take him to a hospital, Erin Nealy Cox, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas, said in a news release.
“This was a tragedy averted,” Nealy Cox said in the release. “I want to praise the defendant’s grandmother, who saved lives by interrupting this plot, as well as the Lubbock police officers and federal agents who investigated his unlawful acquisition of a deadly weapon.”
Others should follow the grandmother’s example and intervene if they “suspect a friend or loved one is planning violence against themselves or others,” Nealy Cox said, adding, “do not hesitate to seek help immediately by calling law enforcement.”
After a brief hospitalization, Williams was arrested Thursday — two days before a gunman opened fire at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas. Two more victims died Monday, bringing the death toll in one of the nation’s deadliest mass shootings in modern history to 22. More than two dozen others were wounded. Less than 24 hours later, nine people were killed and 26 were injured in a shooting outside a bar in Dayton, Ohio.
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Williams, who was charged in a criminal complaint with making false statements to a federally licensed firearms dealer, made his initial court appearance Friday.
While he was in the hospital, Williams gave authorities permission to search his Lubbock hotel room, and said he had laid the weapons on the bed so they could take custody of them.
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Special agents with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the FBI found the AK-47 rifle, 17 magazines loaded with ammunition, multiple knives, a black trench coat, black tactical pants, a black t-shirt that read “Let ‘Em Come” and black tactical gloves with the fingers cut off.
He had planned to carry out the attack on July 13, two days after he bought the AK-47, the release said.
Williams is accused of lying about his address on a required firearms transaction form when he bought the AK-47 on July 11. Authorities said he listed his relatives’ address on the form, but he was living with a roommate at a different address after he was evicted by his relatives. If convicted, Williams could spend five years in federal prison.
Legislation pending in Congress could have prevented Williams from buying the AK-47 and, at the least, required a waiting period of up to 10 days. Texas has no law restricting assault weapons.
Democrats in the House of Representatives approved a pair of bills in February addressing gun violence. One bill would require federal background checks for all firearms sales and transfers, including those sold online or at gun shows, and the other would expand the review waiting period to 10 days. The Republican-controlled Senate hasn’t taken up the bills.
A 1994 federal law that banned semi-automatic assault weapons was allowed to expire in 2004, making military-style weapons legal unless banned by state or local government. according to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
The Giffords Center — founded by former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and her husband after she and 18 others were shot at a constituent meeting outside Tucson, Arizona, in 2011 — is among individuals, elected officials and organizations calling for gun safety legislation in response to mass shootings.
President Trump on Monday called the weekend shootings “barbaric slaughters” and “an assault upon our communities, an attack upon our nation and a crime against all of humanity.” He called for a bipartisan response to the shootings, but offered few details about what that response might look like.
He signaled that he will oppose large-scale gun control efforts, saying, “hatred pulls the trigger, not the gun.”
Earlier Monday, Trump said on Twitter that Republicans and Democrats should work together to strengthen background checks for prospective gun buyers, something national polls show a majority of Americans support.
In the Monday morning tweet, Trump suggested “marrying” strong background checks with “desperately needed immigration reform,” though he wasn’t specific about how legislation would be tied together.
