Massive manhunt
Waffle House suspect arrested, police say
The suspect in an attack that killed four people at a Waffle House restaurant in Tennessee was arrested Monday not far from his apartment, police said.
Authorities had mounted a massive manhunt for 29-year-old Travis Reinking after the Sunday morning attacks in which a gunman clad only in a jacket used an AR-15 rifle to kill four and injure others.
Metropolitan Nashville Police announced Monday on Twitter that he was taken into custody not far from his apartment. Photos posted by police in Nashville showed Reinking clothed and in a police car.
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 3 a.m. on 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 was considered armed and dangerous, because he was known to have owned a handgun authorities have not recovered.
More than 100 Nashville police officers had been going doorto-door and searching wooded areas, joined by dozens of agents with the FBI, the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and
Explosives and troopers with the Tennessee Highway Patrol.
Police said Reinking had stolen a BMW days before the attack. The car was quickly recovered, but authorities did not immediately link it to Reinking.
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, Ill., 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, Ill., last June, and jumped into the water wear-
ing 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 U.S. 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.
The AR-15 used in the shootings was among the firearms seized.
In August, Reinking told police he wanted to file a report about 20 to 30 people tapping into his computer and phone and people “barking like dogs” outside his residence, according to a report.
“There’s certainly evidence that there’s some sort of mental health issues involved,” Tazewell County
Sheriff Robert Huston said. But he said deputies returned the guns to Reinking’s father on the promise that he would “keep the weapons secure and out of the possession of Travis.”
Reinking’s father “has now acknowledged giving them back” to his son, Aaron said.
It is not clear why Reinking moved recently from Morton, Ill., and if it had anything to do with being near Swift, who has a home in Nashville. Police say he worked in construction for a while.
Police say Reinking drove into the Waffle House parking lot in his gold Chevy Silverado pickup early Sunday and sat there for about four minutes before opening fire outside the restaurant.
The victims fatally shot in the parking have been identified as Taurean Sanderlin, 29, of Goodlettsville, and Joe Perez, 20, of Nashville. Sanderlin was an employee at the restaurant.