Waffle House Shooting Suspect In Custody

Waffle House shooting suspect Travis Reinking, 29, has been arrested and taken into custody by Nashville authorities.

Four people were killed and at least seven others injured after Reinking reportedly opened fire in an Antioch, TN waffle house at around 3:25 a.m. on Sunday – clothed in nothing but a green jacket and using an AR-15 style rifle. 

According to The Tennessean, the suspect first fired from the parking lot, shooting two men and shattering the glass window at the front of the restaurant before going inside and continuing to pelt the restaurant with bullets. Eight people were hospitalized after the shooting, six of them with gunshot wounds. Police said that tally could have been much higher if 29-year-old “hero” James Shaw Jr. had not intervened and wrested the gun away from the suspect.

Shaw Jr. says he had gone to eat early Sunday after visiting a nightclub. He then heard gunshots, but initially though they were stacks of plates that had fallen over. Shaw says it was then that he saw restaurant workers scatter and a body near the front door as the gunman burst through the entrance.

“He shot through that door; I’m pretty sure he grazed my arm. At that time I made up my mind … that he was going to have to work to kill me. When the gun jammed or whatever happened, I hit him with the swivel door,” Shaw told a news conference Sunday.

The gun then jammed up, and Shaw managed to get one hand on the gun and grab it. He then threw it over the countertop and took the shooter with him out the entrance. Shaw says the shooter then trotted away.

Days before the rampage, Reinking stole a BMW from a dealership in Brentwood, leading authorities on a Tuesday chase before they lost him in heavy rush hour traffic. 

Metro Nashville Police spokesman Don Aaron told reporters cops chased the vehicle, but then opted to track the car via a GPS device.

The vehicle was recovered the same day at Reinking’s apartment complex in neighboring Antioch. Aaron said that authorities did not know Reinking’s identity at the time since he did not provide identification at the dealership before taking the vehicle.

“They had no idea who the man was,” he said. –Fox News

According to AP, Reinking was arrested last year by the U.S. Secret Service for being in a restricted area near the White House. Metro Nashville Police Department spokesman Don Aaron said the suspect’s firearms authorization was then revoked at the request of the FBI, and four weapons were seized, including the AR-15 that he allegedly used in the shooting at the Waffle House restaurant early Sunday, killing four people. Aaron says the four guns were returned to the suspect’s father, who acknowledged giving them back to his son.

In a subsequent report, a Secret Service agent said Reinking had hoped to talk to President Donald Trump. Special Agent Todd Hudson in Nashville says Travis Reinking “wanted to set up a meeting with the president.”

Hudson says Reinking tried to cross bike racks near the White House grounds that were part of security barriers. Reinking was asked to leave the restricted area, and when he declined, Hudson says he was arrested on a charge of unlawful entry. Reinking, who is from Morton, Illinois, was subsequently released and was later interviewed by the FBI and authorities in Tazewell County, Illinois.

Also on Sunday afternoon, an Illinois sheriff said Reinking’s state firearms card was revoked last year by state police, but his guns were given to his father with the promise that they wouldn’t be shared with his son.

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