Waffle House shooter taken into custody after manhunt
MORE THAN 100 POLICE OFFICERS HAD BEEN GOING DOOR-TO-DOOR LOOKING FOR REINKING
The suspect in a quadruple homicide at a Nashville Waffle House was taken into custody yesterday, police said. Authorities had mounted a massive manhunt for 29-yearold Travis Reinking after the Sunday morning attacks.
Authorities announced the arrest yesterday afternoon on Twitter, but did not immediately give details.
More than 100 Nashville police officers had been going door-to-door and searching wooded areas, joined by dozens of agents with the FBI, the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and troopers with the Tennessee Highway Patrol.
Police said he had stolen a BMW days before the attack. The car was quickly recovered, but authorities did not immediately link it to Reinking.
Reinking, described as a white man with brown hair, opened fire with an AR-15 in the Waffle House parking lot and then stormed the restaurant shortly after 3am Sunday, police say. Four people were killed and four others were injured before a quick-thinking customer wrestled the assault weapon away, preventing more bloodshed. Reinking then disappeared, police said.
Police say about 20 people were in the Waffle House at the time of the shootings. They included people of different races and ethnicities, but the four people killed were minorities three black and one Hispanic.
It’s not clear why Reinking opened fire on restaurant patrons, though he may have “mental issues”, Metropolitan Nashville Police Chief Steve Anderson said earlier. He’s considered armed and dangerous, because he was known to have owned a handgun authorities have not recovered.
Meanwhile, authorities in Illinois shared past reports suggesting multiple red flags about a disturbed young man with paranoid delusions.
In May 2016, Reinking told deputies from Tazewell County, Illinois, that music superstar Taylor Swift was stalking him and hacking his phone, and that his family was also involved, according to a report released Sunday.
Reinking agreed to go to a local hospital for an evaluation after repeatedly resisting the request, the sheriff’s report said.
Another sheriff’s report said Reinking barged into a community pool in Tremont, Illinois, last June, and jumped into the water wearing a pink woman’s coat over his underwear. Investigators believed he had an AR-15 rifle in his car trunk, but it was never displayed. No charges were filed.
Last July, Reinking was arrested by the US Secret Service after he crossed into a restricted area near the White House and refused to leave, saying he wanted to meet President Donald Trump. Reinking was not armed at the time, but at the FBI’s request, state police in Illinois revoked his state firearms card and seized four guns from him, authorities said.