Florida Department of Law Enforcement agents arrested a white supremacist on charges of threatening to carry out his own mass shooting at Walmart.
Richard D. Clayton, 26, of Winter Park was taken into custody after writing on Facebook Aug. 6, “3 more days of probation left then I get my AR-15 back. Don’t go to Walmart next week.” That led to a joint investigation by FDLE, the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force and the Winter Park Police Department.
FDLE said Clayton “appears to believe in the white supremacist ideology and has a history of posting threats on Facebook using fictitious accounts.”
“Law enforcement has zero tolerance for threats being made and will utilize the full force of the Joint Terrorism Task Force to ensure the public’s safety. ‘If You See Something, Say Something®’ Call 855-FLA-SAFE or 911 to report suspicious activity,” FDLE added in a statement.
Since the Aug. 3 mass shooting in El Paso in which 22 people were killed, Wayne Lee Padgett, 31, was arrested for allegedly calling the Walmart Supercenter in Gibsonton, Fla., and threatening to open fire in the stores. And Dmitriy Andreychenko, 20, was arrested for entering a Springfield, Mo., Walmart clad in body armor and armed with a loaded AR-15 and handgun and recording his trip through the store with a cell phone. That spurred evacuation of the store and Andreychenko, who was held at gunpoint by an off-duty firefighter until police arrived, was charged with making a terrorist threat.
According to police, Andreychenko said after his arrest, “I wanted to know if that Walmart honored the Second Amendment.”
