Maryland man arrested after threatening mass shooting at workplace [Archive]

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Twisted Titan

27th July 2012, 06:13 PM

Authorities have arrested a Maryland man they say referred to himself as "a joker" and threatened to carry out a shoo http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/07/27/authorities-thwart-alleged-mass-shooting-plot-in-maryland-seize-arsenal-weapons/ ting at his workplace.

Police arrested 28-year-old Neil Prescott of Crofton, Md., after he allegedly called his employer and threatened to "shoot the place up," a source close to the investigation told Fox News.

Authorities say the suspect called himself "a joker" before his arrest Thursday. Officials say they believe the threat could have been carried out as a copycat of the shooting massacre one week ago in Aurora, Colo., in which 12 people were killed and 58 injured during a midnight viewing of the new Batman film "The Dark Knight Rises."

"I am a joker. I'm gonna load my guns and blow everybody up," the man told his supervisor in a phone conversation earlier this week, officials said.

The suspect was also wearing a T-shirt that said, "Guns don't kill people. I do," when taken into custody, according to authorities.

During a press conference Friday afternoon, authorities referred to the case as a "thwarted terror threat" and called it "significant."

"We can't measure what we prevented here," Prince George's County Police Chief Mark Magaw told reporters Friday. "We averted a significant...and violent episode."

Police said that when they took the man into custody, they found an "arsenal" of weapons inside his home. The Associated Press reports that a search of the suspect's home turned up more than 20 guns, including assault rifles and handguns, and more than 400 rounds of ammunition.

The man was about to get fired from his job at Pitney Bowes, a software and mailroom supplier in Prince George's County, authorities said. He was arrested at his home in Crofton, Md., Thursday night.

Pitney Bowes spokeswoman Carol Wallace said in an emailed statement to the Associated Press that Prescott was an employee of a subcontractor to the company and had not been on any Pitney Bowes property in more than four months.

A source told Fox News that Prescott is "emotionally disturbed." He was being held Friday at Anne Arundel Medical Center in Annapolis, where he was undergoing a psychological evaluation. Crofton is located between Washington, D.C., and Annapolis, Md.

Twisted Titan

27th July 2012, 06:14 PM

Effing idiot I hope they throw him in a dam spider hole for the next 60 years

BrewTech

27th July 2012, 06:33 PM

I don't believe this is real for one second.

osoab

27th July 2012, 06:46 PM

turned up more than 20 guns, including assault rifles and handguns, and more than 400 rounds of ammunition.

What does he get, one reload for each gun?

midnight rambler

27th July 2012, 09:06 PM

What does he get, one reload for each gun?

Smarmy Erin Burnett on the Commie Nooz Nyetwork was interviewing the Police Chief in that area and they were reporting:

He had 25 automatic weapons
He had THOUSANDS of rounds of ammo
And he was in fact wearing a tee shirt which had on it, "Guns don't kill people, I do"

Erin asked the Chief, "Do people *usually* have this much ammunition in their *normal existence*?" to which the Chief say, "Oh no, not at all" (so anyone with over a thousand rounds of ammo can be demonized these days)

And they kept showing the 'arsenal' of "25 automatic weapons" this hapless fellow allegedly owned, some of them appeared to be very nice EBRs, as in this fellow (supposedly) had sought out and purchased the very best in EBRs (based on what they were showing).

I'm guessing that there was at least 10k-15k in guns on display, some of them very nice pieces. None of this makes sense.

PlatinumBlonde

28th July 2012, 09:55 AM

When I saw this I was reminded of the situation when Ron Raygun joked on live air to bomb Russia..

TheNocturnalEgyptian

28th July 2012, 02:18 PM

Anyone serious about committing something like this would never give advanced warning.

midnight rambler

28th July 2012, 02:34 PM

Anyone serious about committing something like this would never give advanced warning.

And even if he wasn't really 'serious' about committing such crime, who's so stupid as to draw that sort of attention to themselves when the outcome is so screaming obvious?? ??? And allegedly with a tee shirt that supposedly said, "Guns don't kill people, I do." (which raises the question how did such a tee shirt come into existence?? SURELY no one is going to mass produce something like that which won't sell, so it would have HAD to have been a 'one off' custom tee...IF it truly existed in the first place...)

Which leads us to -

WE *HAVE* TO PASS *REASONABLE* LAWS WHICH KEEP THESE KILLING MACHINES OUT OF THE HAND OF CRAZIES!!!

yet again.

midnight rambler

28th July 2012, 02:57 PM

Well, apparently I was mistaken with my perceptions of having such a stoopid tee shirt, there appears to be several styles of this same theme.

Here's the ONLY image being shown of this guy's 'arsenal' -

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Maryland-suspect-seized-guns-via-PGCPD-Twitter.jpg

Note the quality pieces on the left, at the bottom we have a 'customized' AR with a Pmag magazine, enhanced charging handle, quad rail with rail covers, and a Magpul stock - definitely not your run of the mill stuff. Just above that we have a decent looking AK, not some CAI junk, and judging by the gas block likely an Arsenal. Then above the AK is what appears to be an AR in .308 with a railed foreend and with a high dollar aftermarket buttstock. And on top on the left we have what appears to be a Mossy shotty with an aftermarket collapsible buttstock. Above the Mossy we have what appears to be a Browning Buckmark with a 10" barrel - certainly not anything that is 'concealable'. Now to the right of the two Mosins and the pump shotty we have what *appears* to be five more EBRs, however we cannot be sure as the top piece appears to be ONLY a barreled AR upper, so the outer four are conveniently out of the frame and may just be barreled uppers (although the middle one certainly appears to be just a barreled AR upper).

osoab

28th July 2012, 03:56 PM

I noticed the 10" 22 as well. It doesn't "fit" at all. I am guessing a Ruger Mark III on that one.

Gaillo

28th July 2012, 04:03 PM

I noticed the 10" 22 as well. It doesn't "fit" at all. I am guessing a Ruger Mark III on that one.

Nope... Midnight had it right, it's a Browning Buckmark. Rugers have a distinctive flanged charging handle at the rear of the slide. Plus, Browning LOVES them that gold trigger! ;D

I think it might be a polished stainless version of this model, sans suppressor:

http://img1.liveinternet.ru/images/attach/c/1//51/530/51530214_Browning_Buck_Mark_Standard_Stainless_URX .jpg

http://img1.liveinternet.ru/images/attach/c/1//51/530/51530255_Browning_Buck_Mark_Standard_Stainless_URX .jpg

PlatinumBlonde

28th July 2012, 04:38 PM

And even if he wasn't really 'serious' about committing such crime, who's so stupid as to draw that sort of attention to themselves when the outcome is so screaming obvious?? ??? And allegedly with a tee shirt that supposedly said, "Guns don't kill people, I do." (which raises the question how did such a tee shirt come into existence?? SURELY no one is going to mass produce something like that which won't sell, so it would have HAD to have been a 'one off' custom tee...IF it truly existed in the first place...)

Which leads us to -

yet again.

This is another false flag..a follow up operation..

woodman

28th July 2012, 06:04 PM

This is another false flag..a follow up operation..

Either that or a usefull idiot.

Shami-Amourae

28th July 2012, 06:08 PM

Scopolamine (http://gold-silver.us/forum/showthread.php?61070-Devil-s-Breath-drug-can-block-free-will-wipe-memory) is a Hell of a drug.

Look up the symptoms and compare it to the Aurora shooter. I believe I'm seeing a pattern since the Aurora shooter can't "remember" what happened.

osoab

28th July 2012, 06:24 PM

Scopolamine (http://gold-silver.us/forum/showthread.php?61070-Devil-s-Breath-drug-can-block-free-will-wipe-memory) is a Hell of a drug.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDoIM1dRzGo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDoIM1dRzGo

midnight rambler

28th July 2012, 07:32 PM

Something else incongruent about that scenario as presented - there are no optics to be seen in the photo. Who builds a high precision tacticool ebr and doesn't put some type of optic on it (nor sling?, not even accessories...?its got the rails...)? Most would at least have a scope of some kind on the 308. Odd.

Twisted Titan

28th July 2012, 08:32 PM

Either that or a usefull idiot.

I Think thjis guy is really just that ............a effing idot of the first dam order and ALL OF US will be paying the price

Twisted Titan

28th July 2012, 08:38 PM

Friend: Md. man held in shooting plot gentle giant

WASHINGTON (AP) — To his friends, Neil E. Prescott was a "gentle giant" — a physically towering young man with a background in computers and electronics and a sarcastic, even biting, sense of humor that people close to him knew to shrug off as innocuous.

But police say they had no choice but to take it seriously when Prescott threatened to shoot up his workplace and referred to himself as "a joker," comments that raised particular alarm in the wake of last week's mass shooting at a Colorado theater during the latest Batman movie. The man accused in those shootings dyed his hair reddish-orange, and New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly has said the man called himself the Joker — a reference to Batman's nemesis.

Prescott, 28, was taken into custody early Friday at his apartment in Maryland, where officers found several thousand rounds of ammunition and a cache of about two dozen weapons including semi-automatic rifles and pistols. He was receiving an emergency psychiatric evaluation at a hospital and had not been charged as of Saturday afternoon.
Two friends told The Associated Press Saturday that they couldn't imagine that Prescott, who was in the process of being fired or already had lost his job, intended to be taken seriously when he allegedly told a supervisor: "I'm a joker and I'm gonna load my guns and blow everybody up."

"Neil's the kind of guy who had the ability to say the wrong thing at the wrong time and not mean anything by it. So to him, he thinks it's funny," said Wesley Weber, who said his friend, at 6 feet 7 inches, was a "gentle giant" prone to bouts of exaggeration and inappropriate jokes who "talked big but didn't walk the walk."
"He has the ability," Weber added, "to say things that could be taken out of context."

Another friend, Mike Cochran, said Prescott has a history of wearing T-shirts with sarcastic, provocative and even inflammatory messages and is "no stranger to sarcasm regardless of political correctness." When first approached by officers, police say, Prescott was wearing a shirt that said "Guns don't kill people. I do."

"The Neil I know made those comments sarcastically in an environment where he felt he could make them without being taken seriously," Cochran said in an email.
Friends say that over the years, Prescott had shown deep interest in hobbies like such as computer software, electronics and ham radio. His clique of friends at one time gathered at parties to play multi-player video games and consume the highly caffeinated Jolt cola, Weber recalled. A sometime disc jockey, he'd also spin house music at Baltimore nightclubs and was the DJ for Cochran's bachelor party in 2005.

In recent years, though, he'd cultivated a passion for collecting firearms. He'd practice his shot at the training range, friends said, and communicate online with fellow gun enthusiasts about the ins and outs of firearm equipment and gun laws. At least some of the firearms recovered from his apartment in Crofton, near Annapolis, appear to have been legally owned, authorities said.

A search for Neil Prescott on a website that tracks users' online activities led to a profile that appears to be him on mdshooters.com, a website for Maryland gun hobbyists. On it, he trades advice about firearms with a display of technical know-how while at times expressing concern about break-ins near his apartment and detailing interactions with the police.

Cochran, who also posts on the site, said he doesn't know when Prescott started his gun collection but that he had been anxious about home invasions. He said he received one message from Prescott last November that said, "Might be sleeping in tomorrow, just had a suspicious male at my door. Notified PD but am gonna be lookin out tonight. Some crazy breakins near me recently."

In March, he provoked a spirited back-and-forth on the site when he complained that two police officers responding to a possible break-in at a nearby apartment "told me never to answer the door on my own property carrying." He said he called a sergeant to complain about the directive.

Last week, he was still on the site, talking with fellow users about 30-round magazines and boasting about his night-vision goggles.
"During the power outage i spent lots of time loading mags and mounting lights, when the zombie apocalypse comes i'll be ready," he wrote.
Maryland state court records for Prescott list only a speeding ticket in 2007. It wasn't immediately clear if he had a lawyer.

Police say Prescott, an employee of a subcontractor for software and mailroom supplier Pitney Bowes, made the threats during two Monday morning phone conversations with a supervisor. The supervisor, who declined to comment Saturday to a reporter who came to his house, said the comments made him afraid, especially because he was aware of Prescott's weapons' cache.

Prescott at one point said he wished to see his supervisor's "brain splatter all over the sidewalk," but also acknowledged that he shouldn't be saying such things over the phone, according to a search warrant applications. The threats were reported to the police, who paid an initial visit to Prescott's apartment on Thursday before taking him into custody Friday morning.

Cochran said he's known Prescott since 2001, when they were colleagues at a technical support outsourcing company. He said Prescott was a network engineer.
"With his skill set and education he would have had no problems finding other work with good pay. Neil did not at any point indicate to me that he had problems with where he was working," Cochran wrote.

Pitney Bowes spokeswoman Carol Wallace said Prescott had not been on any company property in at least four months. It wasn't clear why he was losing his job.
Weber said he thought the remark was inappropriate, but that it was bound to receive more attention now than it may have years ago, especially one week after the Colorado shooting.

"We live in a different world now," he said.

midnight rambler

29th July 2012, 05:48 AM

This guy was being stupid in a no stupid zone.'Co

County Police Chief* said at nooz conference: "When you make a threat that you're going to shoot someone we take you seriously." - which they should imo.

*County Police?? What happened to the county sheriff??

midnight rambler

31st July 2012, 11:36 AM