New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival<\/a>, commonly known as Jazz Fest, runs from Thursday through May 3. The gathering attracted about 460,000 people last year, organizers said.<\/p>\nChristopher Gillum of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, was wanted for \u201cterroristic threats,\u201d the Okaloosa County Sheriff\u2019s Office in Florida posted online Thursday. Federal authorities told the sheriff\u2019s office that Gillum, who is white, was in the Florida Panhandle \u201cheading to do a mass shooting at a large festival in Louisiana.\u201d The FBI in New Orleans said it\u2019s working on the investigation with law enforcement across the three states.<\/p>\n
The Okaloosa sheriff\u2019s office said Gillum was arrested without incident Wednesday night at a hotel in the city of Destin, and posted a photo of him being led away in handcuffs. Deputies recovered a handgun and about 200 rounds of ammunition from the hotel room, the statement said. <\/p>\n
Gillum was arrested as a fugitive from justice and will be extradited to Louisiana to face charges there, the sheriff\u2019s office said. It was not immediately known if he had a lawyer. The Associated Press left a message at phone numbers listed for him.<\/p>\n
Gillum\u2019s family reported him missing on Tuesday and he has a history of self-harm, according to Lt. Clint Lyons of the Alamance County Sheriff\u2019s Office in North Carolina. Gillum\u2019s family told law enforcement he had a gun and had \u201cexpressed recent threats to harm \u2018Black people,\u2019\u201d according to a bulletin from police in Burlington, North Carolina.<\/p>\n
Lyons said Gillum left the state before his agency could prepare the paperwork to involuntarily commit him to psychiatric treatment. Lyons said there were no criminal grounds to detain Gillum despite his comments about Black people \u201cbecause there was no victim,\u201d however the agency decided it needed to spread the word about him to other departments. <\/p>\n
Gillum was located and stopped by law enforcement in Oklaloosa County on Wednesday, according to Lyons and the Burlington police bulletin. <\/p>\n
However, he \u201cdid not present any grounds for involuntary commitment or criminal charges\u201d and was allowed to continue on his way, the bulletin stated. Gillum told officers he was \u201cenroute to New Orleans,\u201d the report added.<\/p>\n
Okaloosa deputies were initially asked to make a \u201cwelfare check\u201d on him Wednesday morning but they didn\u2019t know he\u2019d been making violent threats, sheriff spokesperson Michele Nicholson said. Later that day, after the sheriff\u2019s office learned Gillum was being investigated, deputies surveilled him until an arrest warrant arrived from Louisiana, she added. <\/p>\n
\u201cAt this time, there are no known direct threats to any festivals in Louisiana,\u201d State Police spokesperson Trooper Danny Berrincha said.<\/p>\n
Gillum served as a sworn police officer in Chapel Hill from 2004 until his resignation in 2019, town spokesperson Alex Carrasquillo said. <\/p>\n
He worked as a police officer in the coastal town of Carolina Beach from October 2019 until his resignation the following October, town administrative services officer Sheila Nicholson said. Gillum became a detention officer in October 2023 with the Orange County, North Carolina, sheriff\u2019s office and left in July 2024, spokesperson Alicia L. Stemper said. <\/p>\n
He returned the Chapel Hill police force as a non-sworn employee in 2024 before leaving again by the end of the year, Carrasquillo said. He was then rehired as an Orange County sheriff\u2019s deputy in January 2025 but resigned that September, she said.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
Mustian reported from Natchitoches, Louisiana, and McCormack from Concord, New Hampshire. Associated Press writer Allen G. Breed in Wake Forest, North Carolina, contributed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW ORLEANS (AP) \u2014 Authorities say a former North Carolina law enforcement officer planned to kill Black people…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":602836,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[262298,262299,23,8650,262296,262303,3071,262297,88,52208,2822,2808,793,7922,9597,4381,6098,262301,3508,6099,3,2256,3766,262302,4382,262300,795,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-602835","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-alex-carrasquillo","9":"tag-alicia-l-stemper","10":"tag-america","11":"tag-black-experience","12":"tag-christopher-gillum","13":"tag-clint-lyons","14":"tag-crime","15":"tag-danny-berrincha","16":"tag-entertainment","17":"tag-fairs-and-festivals","18":"tag-fl-state-wire","19":"tag-florida","20":"tag-general-news","21":"tag-gun-violence","22":"tag-la-state-wire","23":"tag-law-enforcement","24":"tag-louisiana","25":"tag-michele-nicholson","26":"tag-nc-state-wire","27":"tag-new-orleans","28":"tag-news","29":"tag-north-carolina","30":"tag-race-and-ethnicity","31":"tag-sheila-nicholson","32":"tag-shootings","33":"tag-trooper-danny-berrincha","34":"tag-u-s-news","35":"tag-united-states","36":"tag-united-states-of-america","37":"tag-unitedstates","38":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","39":"tag-us","40":"tag-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=602835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602835\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/602836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=602835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=602835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=602835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}