Man arrested in alleged plot to attack Texas State Capitol, DPS says<\/a><\/p>\nBenny Caldera Jr. was arrested at his home just hours after investigators learned of the alleged threat. Federal court documents outline what investigators said Caldera told another person on Sept. 29, including an alleged statement that he was going to the Capitol and would \u201cshoot it up.\u201d The documents also state he had made up his mind and said goodbye to his parents.<\/p>\n
The information reached the Texas Department of Public Safety on Tuesday night. By 3 a.m. the next morning, SWAT officers arrived at Caldera\u2019s Converse home.<\/p>\n
Gov. Greg Abbott said, \u201cWe need to recognize that we live in a time when there are people who make these types of threats.\u201d<\/p>\n
Abbott also said \u201cthe person who was arrested for this was on his way to being released from jail. The Texas Department of Public Safety worked with federal officials to make sure that federal charges were going to be brought against him to make he was not going to be released,\u201d<\/p>\n
Investigators said they found a .357 revolver loaded with six rounds, a 12-gauge shotgun, and six 9mm rounds inside the home.<\/p>\n
The criminal complaint alleges Caldera was angry toward the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, stating, \u201cThese people have to be exterminated.\u201d<\/p>\n
Neighbors said they were shocked by the arrest. One neighbor said, \u201cHe was a typical guy. He had two kids. Others’ would be playing baseball with his kids and riding bicycles with them.\u201d Another neighbor said, \u201cYou never know what’s going on,\u201d<\/p>\n
State Sen. Jose Menendez said he wants to understand what led to the alleged threat.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese need to be taken seriously everywhere, and we need to act upon them accordingly. At the end of the day, we need to ask ourselves, do we know what was going on with the person, is this someone who is suffering from mental health. Is this an issue? is a hardened criminal? Then let’s let’s address the issue appropriately,\u201d Menendez said.<\/p>\n
U.S. Attorney Simmons said, \u201cThis defendant is in federal custody today thanks to a perceptive and concerned citizen seeing something and saying something,\u201d adding, \u201cHad the alleged threats not been taken seriously and reported to law enforcement, we could have a very different and tragic story to tell today. I appreciate the diligent efforts of our partners at Texas DPS and at the FBI, and I again urge everyone to take threats like this seriously and report them appropriately. You never know the impact you may have and the number of lives you could save.\u201d<\/p>\n
Caldera remains in federal custody. If convicted, he faces up to five years in prison.<\/p>\n
The Capitol remains open, and DPS said it will maintain an increased security presence. The FBI is investigating the case with assistance from Texas DPS.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Converse man is facing federal charges after authorities said he threatened to \u201cshoot up\u201d the Texas Capitol.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":453894,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[82,84,83],"class_list":["post-453893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453893","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=453893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/453894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}