Ex-Cop Busted in Alleged Mass Shooting Plot: Bodycam

Hey guys, thank you. An X-Cop caught red-handed, both with a white claw in his hand. You have a warrant? I don't know. Yep. And he stands accused of plotting a mass shooting scheme at a New Orleans festival. For what? How Louisiana for terrorizing? For threats. Yep. [MUSIC PLAYING] This is Scandal, presented by Lawn Crime. I'm Sierra Gillespie. [MUSIC PLAYING] Is there any weapons in the room? Ah, yeah, there's a gun there. And he wasn't kidding. When Florida deputies stormed this former cop's Hampton in a hotel room, they found a handgun and 200 rounds of ammunition. Prosecutors say he was planning to shoot up a music festival in New Orleans that sees about 70,000 visitors per day. But luckily, they got a tip that the suspect was in town and stopped the threat before anything happened. And now he's love scratching his head and pleading for help. I've got to ask him a fight. So what do I do for him here? Today's scandal takes us to Destin, Florida, a seaside city in the state's Panhandle. Back in April, Oklahoma County Sheriff's deputy has got a tip that 40-year-old Christopher Gillia was in town staying at a Hampton Inn. According to the tip, Chris was planning a mass shooting at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. That was set to run from April 23 until May 3. A Louisiana judge had issued a warrant for Chris's arrest to prevent this alleged shooting plot and that led investigators to the Destin, Hampton Inn. Sheriff's deputies confirmed Chris was staying at the hotel through security camera video and on April 22, planned to take him into custody. I'm going to go on. Does anyone? Body camera video shows a group of deputies in the hotel lobby, making their way toward Chris's room. Where's the stairs at? Right here. Nope, we'll just play. I was looking for stairs, it's just gonna be. And there's multiple angles here. One detective has his phone at the ready in case he needs to back in Chris out of the room. I'm gonna call him. (crickets chirping) Hey, hold on. Is there elevators here or not, just over there? Close to the stairs. This is gonna be. The elevator's in the call, let's cut it in. Oh, bad. Three, four, okay. Not cool. Okay. Pull up your group chat so I'm gonna phone you. Okay, we'll just get out of here. And we'll have to see if he doesn't like it to this. Make sure. More. (crickets chirping) (crickets chirping) At first, deputies aren't sure of Chris' inside the room. You can hear them whispering outside of the doors. I'm gonna walk, closing the door. (crickets chirping) After about three minutes in the hotel, one of the deputies decides just to call Chris and see if they can get him into the hallway that way. (crickets chirping) Hey Chris, it's starting to welcome Sheriff's house. How are you ma? Not bad. Yeah, I guess you have an issue with your family calling the welfare checks, don't you? Okay. Okay, well they called it another one again. Are you able to come talk to me again? No, no, no, no, we had shift change. I guess you talked to our day shift earlier. Yeah, man, if you wanna come on down to the lobby, I appreciate it. All right, sounds good, thank you. Bye, bye. He's on his way. And here's the moment. Chris comes strolling toward his hotel room and is taken into custody. Hey guys. Hey guys, thank you. All right, what's wrong? Do you have a warrant? Please note, Chris is approached by deputies while he has a blood-orange white claw in his hand. One of the deputies actually has to grab it so they can put Chris in cuffs. And then it becomes really clear. This isn't a welfare check from Chris' family like the deputies set on the phone. Instead, there's a warrant out for his arrest. I don't know. Yep. For what? Elisiana for terrorizing. For threats. Because there are multiple deputies on the scene. This is caught on body camera from another angle too. And this one kind of gives you a better view of Chris. Yeah, we were. I don't know. Yep. For what? For threats. Yep. Chris blames his family calling them nuts, but deputies have to take the threat seriously so they ask Chris whether he has any weapons. Sorry if that's the way it is, but-- You know we could have done it. Got me to watch. Any weapons on it? Oh, no, sir. No. I'm good. Is there any weapons in the room? Yeah. Yeah, there's a gun in there. OK, where is it? It's in my-- My military bag. My ring bag. Yeah, a ring bag? Oh no, go right ahead. You can take whatever you want. It's now that Chris gives him insight into his background. He's a former cop out of North Carolina. Can't get away from him. I've been a law enforcement for 20 years, some years. Who is a big parents or siblings of-- Yeah, and I heard my aunt last night. My key card is in my wallet right there if you want to grab it. So how long you about? Is this a-- So I went through a terrible divorce for about three years ago. OK. And I've been out since. So about three years ago, do you say? Yeah. So you get with me just pouring this out and putting it back on? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Is it on the-- I should be right there in that little section. This one? No, the one you were just like, we're near the cache. OK. Yeah, there it is. With plans to dump out the white cloths, deputies head into Chris's room, and the recording goes black. There's no audio or video. So we don't know exactly what happened inside of the room. But we do know that deputies recovered a handgun and 200 rounds of ammunition. The Osco-Lisa County Sheriff's Office released this photo showing the recovery. Now, there are about five minutes where detectives are inside the hotel room where we don't have audio or video. But then it's time to take Chris downtown. Well, walking to the squad car, Chris and the deputies make small talk about the best places to watch the sunset or grab drinks. Yeah, it's down here. You got to be able to go across straight and go to the-- I'm going to have two more drinks. Yeah. So where I'd be right there for that sunset. Chris is escorted to the squad car and acts shockingly pleasant. Yeah. We got from beaches to the state line. I got to say, you guys have a-- Oh, I'll pop it. Yeah. It's huge. OK, how big is the camera? Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, OK. Yeah, I can. Do you want this or do you want him to do it? And we do the safe keeping. Do you want to serve? And we do safe keeping? Or do you want to do safe keeping? I don't know. I don't know what I'm going to do. I've never-- I don't know how to serve it. Who do you call? Who do you call? OK, who do you serve? Huh? Yeah, I don't see that better. I'm going to play P.I. games for you. You-- if you want to serve it, you could call him and walk you through it. It's a P.G. It's a out of state for you different justice. It's a P.C. It's a P.C. Yeah. So it's just a P.A. It's just a P.C. That recording ends here. But another picks up with Chris being padded down and searched for any other weapons. Are you going to stand right here? You're going to stand right here. I'm just going to get everything out of your pockets. Be sure if he's up. Yeah, thanks, boss. Yeah, we'll do that. It's all good. Dude, does mine-- if he doesn't mind transport, now walk-- I don't want to-- We'll bag it all. Sure. Booking, hey. Fort Wong drops him off and booking has to do him as well. Booking can walk him through it as well. Booking knows how to do it. Yeah. So this one's a fusion of justice testing. Yeah. I think my water's in my mouth. Yeah, I'll get it out. Yeah. I have to touch up away or anything like that. Oh, you're giving me. You know what I got to do. We're giving up my water. Going back on. All right, we're good to take a seat. With a small hiccup, Chris is loaded into the squad car. It's going to be a lot of water. I'm going to get this belt set up. Damn, damn. Go ahead. Let's try your thing. Try to do that. Are you good? Yeah. Thanks, dude. There you go. I'm showing you more of this belt. Come on in a second. Go ahead and set that thing back real quick. I'm trying to. I know you're good. Come back. I'm coming back with this. I know. I know you're here this all the time. But can you check my cups one more time? I just heard some quicker. Go ahead and eat up. Yeah, it hurts. Appreciate it. Do you want to rotate your hands around? I don't. Yeah, maybe just put my palms together or something. Yeah, we can do palm together. Go ahead and rotate that. I'm going to not make it too tight on you. Double. I'll double like that right now. That's double locked. Except that left one is pretty tight. And rotate. Thank you. And that one's double locked. You're good. Yeah, no problem. Hey. I need a bag. Dan. I need a bag. You need a bag. You got my stuff. On the right to the sheriff's office, Chris begins chatting with the deputy behind the wheel. And I'll warn you the video is blurred, but it's their conversation. That's really what's important here. You're as comfortable as you can be. All right. (bell ringing) Uh, 25-ish minutes maybe. If traffic's good. Okay, so boring small talk at first, but soon Chris starts bringing up his family. He's still blaming them for reporting him for a quote unquote, "wellness check." You were hit. That's crazy. Define your devil. What's your definition of crazy? All I wanna do is lay no trail on them. Now they think it's such an interesting person. Uh, I've got crazy family, but I don't know if it's in the same realm that you're talking. Yeah. Even though he has a history of working as a police officer for about two decades, Chris still has a lot of questions about the process. You guys have a match? Uh, we were judges, yeah. You'll see a judge in the morning, I guess. I'm still waiting to see what you're being charged with. I think just the Warren from Louisiana. Yeah, I don't have specifics on it. I mean, that sounds like a pretty, uh, pretty serious accusation right there. Yeah. I told my family I was going to New Orleans and I was trying to get away from him. Yeah, that I don't know anything about him. I don't. Chris then explains why he was in the Dustin area, saying he kind of grew up there. Yeah. Oh, you lived here? Yeah, I went to have a station. Oh, okay. Yeah, I got a program for about two years. Oh, okay. Just sending it back. Yeah, blue water bay is nice. I like that area. Going fishing on all those little mountains in the neighborhood. Yeah. These places now are, they're so ridiculous. Anytime somebody goes fishing in the ponds that doesn't belong there, oh, they are calling us right away. And it's mostly the kids that are doing it. And now they, with the e-bikes and scooters, they are quick, so quick to call with that stuff. But even after the small talk, Chris once again circles back to the logistics of his case. I mean, you know, there's not much I can tell you. I get it. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know the specifics on what you've got going on. I don't either. All I know is New Orleans, or somebody had a Louisiana put a warrant out for you. Judge signed off on it. Yeah, at some point, they're going to want to talk to you about it. And that's where you get some trust and family. That's why you're just using it. And I don't know your side of the story to tell you, you know, what? I just get drunk and talk to anybody. And he's antsy to know where his property is. Specifically, his gun that was confiscated. So my gun is going to be kept in the shares office? Yeah, yeah. We have it for safekeeping. The rest of your property, I don't know what to tell you. The truck and all that will be there. Hey, well, maybe they're going to eat on it. I don't know. Or you said boxers are lobsters. Boxers. Oh, okay. Boxers. Yeah. Dale, they maybe they'll store it for you. I have no idea. But with you maybe having to go to Louisiana, I don't know what to tell you, man. I don't know how that's all going to work out for you. Yeah, I wish I had more to tell you. Honestly, I didn't even take my part was going to be to transport you. I was just sitting on the outside watching. That's all hard going. The small talk continues, chatting about Chris's weird family and the deputy who put him in cups. Always something. Yeah, I'm sure. I'll take that young officer. He likes to put handcuffs on, right? Yeah, I'm sure. Yeah. The video goes black here, but you can hear deputies talking amongst themselves. They joke about Chris not being a drunk driver, but rather a fugitive. Not a DUI. I know I'm upset about it too. Did you really? Oh, man. Now this is the fugitive justice. I got stuck with it. Yeah, but he's been cold. He is an ex police officer at North Carolina. He's on the fastest idea. Prosecutors now say that Chris threatened a mass shooting in New Orleans at a major music festival that sees upward of 70,000 people per day. According to local outlets like Fox Live 8, Chris allegedly planned to bring his gun in 200 rounds of ammo to the festival, and ultimately die by suicide by cop. That alleged plan was foiled though when investigators were able to take him into custody in Florida. He was extra-dited to Louisiana a few weeks later on May 12th, then appeared in court the following day day we're a joy. The judge ruled he'd be held without bond. And that is where today's episode of Scandal leaves us for now. If you like what you saw and want to see more or connect with me on social media, you can find me on places like Instagram @SierraGalessby. Thanks for watching today's episode of Scandal. As always, I'm your host SierraGalessby, and I'll see you next time.