{"id":364033,"date":"2026-07-07T14:35:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T14:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/364033\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T14:35:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T14:35:09","slug":"fbi-says-it-stopped-mass-shooting-at-lubbock-pride-fest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/364033\/","title":{"rendered":"FBI says it stopped mass shooting at Lubbock Pride Fest"},"content":{"rendered":"

The FBI<\/a> arrested a New Mexico<\/a> man for allegedly threatening a mass shooting at a Pride parade in Texas<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Justice Department announced<\/a> charges against Michael Thompson, 44, of New Mexico, for interstate threatening communications based on social media comments about Lubbock Pride Fest.<\/p>\n

A criminal complaint says Thompson made the comments on the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal\u2019s Facebook page. On a post about the Pride event, Thompson wrote, \u201csoooooo whatcha saying is it\u2019s Hunting Season\u201d and \u201cnothing that a little target practice can\u2019t fix,\u201d according to a federal affidavit filed by FBI Special Agent Ryan Phelan. Thompson also wrote in reply to another comment, \u201cI don\u2019t need help just more ammo!\u201d<\/p>\n

Related: White House puts trans rights groups in counterterrorism crosshairs<\/a><\/p>\n

Authorities first learned of the comments from an anonymous tip to the FBI\u2019s National Threat Operations Center. Phelan wrote that he investigated the internet protocol address used to post the comments and traced it back to Thompson\u2019s address and an account associated with him.<\/p>\n

Local police arrested Thompson on June 28. During an interview with law enforcement, he admitted making the comments before deleting them and called himself a \u201cdumbass\u201d who was \u201cjust running his mouth,\u201d according to the affidavit. He indicated he had no intention of actually shooting anybody despite the threats.<\/p>\n

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Ryan Ellison and FBI Special Agent Justin Garris, who runs the FBI\u2019s Albuquerque office, announced the charges. Police in Clovis, New Mexico, where Thompson lives, assisted in the investigation.<\/p>\n

FBI Director Kash Patel<\/a> said the investigation involved work between FBI agents in Texas as well.<\/p>\n

Related: Anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes have risen around the world since 2020: report<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThis weekend\u2019s arrest out of Lubbock, Texas, is the best of this FBI and our law enforcement partners in action\u2014yet again stopping a potentially deadly attack thanks to brilliant execution from our teams and partners,” Patel told Fox News<\/a>. “Our agents, intel teams, and state and local partners out of Texas acted decisively and stopped him before he could act.”<\/p>\n

Thompson faces up to five years in prison if convicted. Records show Thompson is on pretrial release.<\/p>\n

Lubbock Pride appeared to go off without incident, based on social media posts. The event took place on June 27, one day before Thompson\u2019s arrest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The FBI arrested a New Mexico man for allegedly threatening a mass shooting at a Pride parade in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":364034,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[5893,3646,168,170,169,6825,129043,27],"class_list":["post-364033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lubbock","tag-facebook","tag-fbi","tag-lubbock","tag-lubbock-headlines","tag-lubbock-news","tag-pride","tag-pridefest","tag-texas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364033\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/364034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}