Authorities say Reinking, wearing nothing but a green jacket, opened fire at the Waffle House restaurant
Police in Nashville said Monday that they had arrested Travis Reinking, the 29-year-old accused of killing four people in a shooting rampage at a Waffle House over the weekend.
The announcement Monday afternoon came nearly 34 hours after the mass shooting, which unnerved the Tennessee capital and prompted a sprawling manhunt. A little more than an hour before police said they had apprehended Reinking, authorities had acknowledged having "no confirmed sightings" of him and saying they were not even sure if he remained in the area.
Police did not immediately say how Reinking was located. But while he was at large, they said he posed a significant danger to the area, saying Reinking had shown "signs of significant instability," Don Aaron, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department, said at a news briefing late Monday morning.
Aaron pointed to Reinking's arrest outside the White House last year, as well as a string of bizarre encounters with law enforcement officials in Illinois. Reinking once told law enforcement officers that the singer Taylor Swift had been harassing and stalking him - a delusion that authorities in Illinois said Reinking had had for years.
Last year, police records show that Reinking went to a local pool in Illinois wearing a pink dress and swam in his underwear while trying to coax life guards to fight him. Soon after, he traveled to the nation's capital and tried to cross a security barrier near the White House, declaring himself a "sovereign citizen" who wanted to speak with President Donald Trump.
Most recently, Aaron said, Reinking stole a BMW from a dealership in suburban Nashville just four days before the Waffle House shooting, eluding police officers who later recovered the vehicle at his apartment complex.
Reinking went to a Brentwood, Tennessee, BMW dealership, asked about purchasing a car and then stole a vehicle, Aaron said. Police in Brentwood followed him but gave up on the search, because it was rush hour and the car could be tracked through its GPS, according to Aaron; they later used that system to find the car at his apartment complex.
"They had no idea who the man was," Aaron said, noting that Reinking refused to give identification to the dealership, so they did not have his name. After the shooting, a keyfob for the BMW was found in Reinking's apartment, he said. Police in Brentwood did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.
Police reports dating back to May 2016 offer a glimpse of other encounters authorities had with Reinking - and they reveal that despite his history, Reinking remained in possession of several firearms and a gun license in Illinois. His license was revoked, and his firearms were confiscated after the incident at the White House last summer, but officials said the weapons later ended up back in Reinking's hands.
Early Sunday, police say the 29-year-old man from Morton, Illinois, used a previously confiscated semiautomatic AR-15 rifle in a shooting rampage at a Waffle House in the Nashville area. Three people died in the restaurant, while a fourth died later at Vanderbilt University Medical Center; two more people were injured.
As the police search for Reinking expanded across Nashville, with some 160 law enforcement officials scouring the area, local schools were placed in "lockout" mode. Students were allowed to freely move inside school buildings, but no visitors are allowed inside, the Metro Nashville Public School system said.
"We have a man who has exhibited significant instability," Aaron said during a briefing before Reinking was arrested. "We are concerned for the citizens not just here but anywhere else he may go."
Before his arrest, police had said Reinking was last seen Sunday morning in a wooded area behind his apartment, where he had been living for several months. Aaron said Monday that one of the four guns seized by Illinois authorities after Reinking's arrest last year - a pistol - remained unaccounted for during the manhunt.
Late Sunday, a resident of a nearby county contacted police to say he had found an empty laptop bag containing a handwritten ID card with Reinking's name, Aaron said. This suggests that the 29-year-old was in that area the same night the shooting occurred, but it remains unclear if the bag was dropped before or after the gunfire, police said.
Aaron had said that if Reinking was hiding in the woods, he would have been there for more than a day, and at some point "he's going to have to come out for food and water."
Authorities say Reinking, wearing nothing but a green jacket, opened fire at the Waffle House restaurant in Antioch, a neighborhood southeast of downtown Nashville, just before 3:30 a.m. Sunday. He had been sitting in his pickup truck at the Waffle House for a few minutes, looking around, before he got out and immediately began shooting at customers in the parking lot, Aaron, the police spokesman, said.
The man kept shooting as he walked inside, shattering the restaurant's glass windows. At one point, he stopped, presumably to reload. That's when police say a customer, James Shaw Jr., lunged at the gunman, wrestled the weapon away from him and tossed it over the counter.
Among the victims was 29-year-old Taurean C. Sanderlin of Goodlettsville, Tennessee, a restaurant employee who was fatally shot while standing outside. The others killed were customers: Joe R. Perez, 20, of Nashville; Deebony Groves, 21, of Gallatin, Tenn.; and Akilah Dasilva, 23, of Antioch.
Two others - Shanita Waggoner, 21, of Nashville, and Sharita Henderson, 24, of Antioch - were hospitalized at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, police said. They were in stable condition Monday, hospital spokeswoman Jennifer Wetzel said.
It was not immediately clear how or why Reinking obtained a Firearm Owner's Identification Card in Illinois, or whether he had been diagnosed with any mental illness before he moved to Tennessee. Illinois state law prohibits someone who's been "adjudicated as a mental defective" or has been a patient at a mental institution from obtaining a firearm license.
But documents released by the Tazewell County Sheriff's Office in Illinois paint a picture of what they described as a troubled - and armed - man who had talked about killing himself.
Late at night on May 26, 2016, an emergency response officer found Reinking at a CVS parking lot in Morton, where his family lives. Reinking believed that pop star Taylor Swift had been hacking his phone and that his family was involved in the harassment.
According to a police report, he told a bizarre story about a Dairy Queen meetup with Swift that ended with Reinking looking for the singer on the restaurant's rooftop. The police report says Reinking was eventually taken to a hospital to be evaluated.
On June 16, 2017, officials say Reinking - who was living inside a shop above the offices of his father's construction business in Tremont, Illinois - screamed at two employees before driving away wearing a pink dress and carrying an AR-15 rifle. He showed up minutes later at a local pool, jumped into the water wearing only his underwear and exposed himself to the lifeguards, a police report says.
Reinking's father and sister both told officials that they would try to keep the weapons away from Reinking until he got psychological help, the report says.
A month later, he was arrested in Washington for trying to cross a security barrier near the White House.
Reinking told authorities he had to get to the building to speak with the president, and that "he was a sovereign citizen and has a right to inspect the grounds," according to a D.C. police report. Sovereign citizens are viewed by the FBI as anti-government extremists who believe they are not subject to governmental laws, and law enforcement officials have described them as a major concern.
An officer told Reinking to move because he was blocking a pedestrian entrance at the White House, but Reinking "began to take his tie off and balled it into a fist" while walking past the security barriers and toward an officer, the police report says.
"Do what you need to do," Reinking said, according to the report. "Arrest me if you have to."
Reinking was charged with unlawful entry, a misdemeanor, officials said. He later entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the U.S. attorney's office.
He was ordered to perform 32 hours of community service at Cornerstone Baptist Church in Morton and to stay away from the White House for four months. He mowed grass, ran a forklift to move pallets of food, and packaged food for distribution to local food banks as well as hygiene packets for hurricane disaster relief. A letter signed by the church's pastor, the Rev. Steven. E. Hauter, says Reinking completed 33.5 hours of community service.
A woman who answered the phone at the church Monday said Hauter was "not available, and we have no comments."
Prosecutors dismissed the case against Reinking in November after he completed the terms of the agreement.
After an investigation by the FBI office in Springfield, Illinois, state and local officials confiscated Reinking's guns and revoked his firearm license in August. The weapons were given to Reinking's father, who agreed to keep them secure and away from Reinking, officials said. But the father later acknowledged giving the weapons back to his son, who had moved to Tennessee.
Under Illinois law, certain confiscated guns can be released to a family member, but Reinking could not lawfully possess the weapons in that state. It's unclear whether possessing the weapons was illegal in Tennessee.
A woman who answered Sunday at a number registered to Reinking's relatives in Illinois said, "We have no comment."
Police said Reinking moved to the Nashville area last fall and worked in the construction industry. Aaron, the police spokesman, said he was fired from a job about three weeks ago and was later hired by another employer. Reinking had not been to work since Monday.
The Waffle House shooting rattled the working-class neighborhood in Antioch, where a masked gunman opened fire at a church last year, killing a woman and wounding several other people. Emanuel K. Samson, 26, was arrested in that shooting.
It also comes at a time of intensified debate over guns and a swirling controversy about the AR-15, a type of weapon used in several mass shootings recently and dubbed "America's rifle" by the National Rifle Association.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The announcement Monday afternoon came nearly 34 hours after the mass shooting, which unnerved the Tennessee capital and prompted a sprawling manhunt. A little more than an hour before police said they had apprehended Reinking, authorities had acknowledged having "no confirmed sightings" of him and saying they were not even sure if he remained in the area.
Police did not immediately say how Reinking was located. But while he was at large, they said he posed a significant danger to the area, saying Reinking had shown "signs of significant instability," Don Aaron, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department, said at a news briefing late Monday morning.
Aaron pointed to Reinking's arrest outside the White House last year, as well as a string of bizarre encounters with law enforcement officials in Illinois. Reinking once told law enforcement officers that the singer Taylor Swift had been harassing and stalking him - a delusion that authorities in Illinois said Reinking had had for years.
Last year, police records show that Reinking went to a local pool in Illinois wearing a pink dress and swam in his underwear while trying to coax life guards to fight him. Soon after, he traveled to the nation's capital and tried to cross a security barrier near the White House, declaring himself a "sovereign citizen" who wanted to speak with President Donald Trump.
Most recently, Aaron said, Reinking stole a BMW from a dealership in suburban Nashville just four days before the Waffle House shooting, eluding police officers who later recovered the vehicle at his apartment complex.
Reinking went to a Brentwood, Tennessee, BMW dealership, asked about purchasing a car and then stole a vehicle, Aaron said. Police in Brentwood followed him but gave up on the search, because it was rush hour and the car could be tracked through its GPS, according to Aaron; they later used that system to find the car at his apartment complex.
"They had no idea who the man was," Aaron said, noting that Reinking refused to give identification to the dealership, so they did not have his name. After the shooting, a keyfob for the BMW was found in Reinking's apartment, he said. Police in Brentwood did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.
Police reports dating back to May 2016 offer a glimpse of other encounters authorities had with Reinking - and they reveal that despite his history, Reinking remained in possession of several firearms and a gun license in Illinois. His license was revoked, and his firearms were confiscated after the incident at the White House last summer, but officials said the weapons later ended up back in Reinking's hands.
Early Sunday, police say the 29-year-old man from Morton, Illinois, used a previously confiscated semiautomatic AR-15 rifle in a shooting rampage at a Waffle House in the Nashville area. Three people died in the restaurant, while a fourth died later at Vanderbilt University Medical Center; two more people were injured.
As the police search for Reinking expanded across Nashville, with some 160 law enforcement officials scouring the area, local schools were placed in "lockout" mode. Students were allowed to freely move inside school buildings, but no visitors are allowed inside, the Metro Nashville Public School system said.
"We have a man who has exhibited significant instability," Aaron said during a briefing before Reinking was arrested. "We are concerned for the citizens not just here but anywhere else he may go."
Before his arrest, police had said Reinking was last seen Sunday morning in a wooded area behind his apartment, where he had been living for several months. Aaron said Monday that one of the four guns seized by Illinois authorities after Reinking's arrest last year - a pistol - remained unaccounted for during the manhunt.
Late Sunday, a resident of a nearby county contacted police to say he had found an empty laptop bag containing a handwritten ID card with Reinking's name, Aaron said. This suggests that the 29-year-old was in that area the same night the shooting occurred, but it remains unclear if the bag was dropped before or after the gunfire, police said.
Aaron had said that if Reinking was hiding in the woods, he would have been there for more than a day, and at some point "he's going to have to come out for food and water."
Authorities say Reinking, wearing nothing but a green jacket, opened fire at the Waffle House restaurant in Antioch, a neighborhood southeast of downtown Nashville, just before 3:30 a.m. Sunday. He had been sitting in his pickup truck at the Waffle House for a few minutes, looking around, before he got out and immediately began shooting at customers in the parking lot, Aaron, the police spokesman, said.
The man kept shooting as he walked inside, shattering the restaurant's glass windows. At one point, he stopped, presumably to reload. That's when police say a customer, James Shaw Jr., lunged at the gunman, wrestled the weapon away from him and tossed it over the counter.
Among the victims was 29-year-old Taurean C. Sanderlin of Goodlettsville, Tennessee, a restaurant employee who was fatally shot while standing outside. The others killed were customers: Joe R. Perez, 20, of Nashville; Deebony Groves, 21, of Gallatin, Tenn.; and Akilah Dasilva, 23, of Antioch.
Two others - Shanita Waggoner, 21, of Nashville, and Sharita Henderson, 24, of Antioch - were hospitalized at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, police said. They were in stable condition Monday, hospital spokeswoman Jennifer Wetzel said.
It was not immediately clear how or why Reinking obtained a Firearm Owner's Identification Card in Illinois, or whether he had been diagnosed with any mental illness before he moved to Tennessee. Illinois state law prohibits someone who's been "adjudicated as a mental defective" or has been a patient at a mental institution from obtaining a firearm license.
But documents released by the Tazewell County Sheriff's Office in Illinois paint a picture of what they described as a troubled - and armed - man who had talked about killing himself.
Late at night on May 26, 2016, an emergency response officer found Reinking at a CVS parking lot in Morton, where his family lives. Reinking believed that pop star Taylor Swift had been hacking his phone and that his family was involved in the harassment.
According to a police report, he told a bizarre story about a Dairy Queen meetup with Swift that ended with Reinking looking for the singer on the restaurant's rooftop. The police report says Reinking was eventually taken to a hospital to be evaluated.
On June 16, 2017, officials say Reinking - who was living inside a shop above the offices of his father's construction business in Tremont, Illinois - screamed at two employees before driving away wearing a pink dress and carrying an AR-15 rifle. He showed up minutes later at a local pool, jumped into the water wearing only his underwear and exposed himself to the lifeguards, a police report says.
Reinking's father and sister both told officials that they would try to keep the weapons away from Reinking until he got psychological help, the report says.
A month later, he was arrested in Washington for trying to cross a security barrier near the White House.
Reinking told authorities he had to get to the building to speak with the president, and that "he was a sovereign citizen and has a right to inspect the grounds," according to a D.C. police report. Sovereign citizens are viewed by the FBI as anti-government extremists who believe they are not subject to governmental laws, and law enforcement officials have described them as a major concern.
An officer told Reinking to move because he was blocking a pedestrian entrance at the White House, but Reinking "began to take his tie off and balled it into a fist" while walking past the security barriers and toward an officer, the police report says.
"Do what you need to do," Reinking said, according to the report. "Arrest me if you have to."
Reinking was charged with unlawful entry, a misdemeanor, officials said. He later entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the U.S. attorney's office.
He was ordered to perform 32 hours of community service at Cornerstone Baptist Church in Morton and to stay away from the White House for four months. He mowed grass, ran a forklift to move pallets of food, and packaged food for distribution to local food banks as well as hygiene packets for hurricane disaster relief. A letter signed by the church's pastor, the Rev. Steven. E. Hauter, says Reinking completed 33.5 hours of community service.
A woman who answered the phone at the church Monday said Hauter was "not available, and we have no comments."
Prosecutors dismissed the case against Reinking in November after he completed the terms of the agreement.
After an investigation by the FBI office in Springfield, Illinois, state and local officials confiscated Reinking's guns and revoked his firearm license in August. The weapons were given to Reinking's father, who agreed to keep them secure and away from Reinking, officials said. But the father later acknowledged giving the weapons back to his son, who had moved to Tennessee.
Under Illinois law, certain confiscated guns can be released to a family member, but Reinking could not lawfully possess the weapons in that state. It's unclear whether possessing the weapons was illegal in Tennessee.
A woman who answered Sunday at a number registered to Reinking's relatives in Illinois said, "We have no comment."
Police said Reinking moved to the Nashville area last fall and worked in the construction industry. Aaron, the police spokesman, said he was fired from a job about three weeks ago and was later hired by another employer. Reinking had not been to work since Monday.
The Waffle House shooting rattled the working-class neighborhood in Antioch, where a masked gunman opened fire at a church last year, killing a woman and wounding several other people. Emanuel K. Samson, 26, was arrested in that shooting.
It also comes at a time of intensified debate over guns and a swirling controversy about the AR-15, a type of weapon used in several mass shootings recently and dubbed "America's rifle" by the National Rifle Association.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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