Christopher Gillum, a former detention officer with the Orange County Sheriff's Office in North Carolina, was taken into custody at a hotel in Destin, Florida, according to the Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office. Deputies recovered a handgun and about 200 rounds of ammunition from his hotel room. Gillum was wanted for 'terroristic threats,' the sheriff's office said. Federal authorities had alerted local law enforcement that Gillum was heading to commit a mass shooting at a large festival in Louisiana, according to unnamed federal officials.
Gillum's family reported him missing on Tuesday, said Lt. Clint Lyons of the Alamance County Sheriff's Office. They told law enforcement that Gillum had a gun and had recently expressed threats to harm 'Black people,' according to a Burlington police bulletin. Lyons noted that Gillum had a history of self-harm. The family's concerns prompted a welfare check, but Gillum crossed state lines before his agency could prepare paperwork to involuntarily commit him. Lyons explained that there were no criminal grounds to detain Gillum despite his comments about Black people because there was no specific victim.
Okaloosa deputies were initially asked to make a welfare check on Gillum Wednesday morning and were not aware of any threats, said sheriff spokesperson Michele Nicholson. Later that day, after learning Gillum was being investigated, deputies surveilled him until a signed warrant arrived from Louisiana. Gillum was located and stopped by law enforcement in Okaloosa County on Wednesday, according to Lyons and the Burlington police bulletin. He told officers he was en route to New Orleans, the bulletin stated.
The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, which runs from Thursday through May 3, attracted about 460,000 people last year, according to organizers. Gillum had been hired as a detention officer by the sheriff's office in Orange County, North Carolina, reported The Independent. The investigation is ongoing, and it remains unclear which federal agency informed the Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office about the threat or what specific charges Gillum will face in Louisiana.