Venice man planned mass shooting at church, wanted to attack mosque

A Venice man was arrested after he was accused of planning a mass shooting at a local church.

A news release from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement said the FBI pointed the agency toward Giovanni Pimienta, 19, who was “communicating with other users online about obtaining weapons and conducting a mass shooting and glorifying other mass shootings.”

Pimienta posted a 61-page manifesto, which he said was written by the AI chat bot Grok, and an AI-generated video appearing to show him and a co-conspirator dancing in front of a mosque in South Carolina. Pimienta said he would “purchase an AR-15 and shoot up a mosque,” an arrest report said.

The manifesto included “personal reflections, ideological arguments, calls for social collapse, praise of violence, and promotion of white supremacists, antisemitic, anti-Black, anti-Muslim, accelerationist viewpoints, and praising the actions of Caleb Vasquez, who perpetrated a deadly attack against the Islamic Center of San Diego,” according to an arrest report.

Agents searched Pimienta’s home and seized a handgun and multiple electronic devices. FDLE said Pimienta “had a grievance against a local church and was planning to take hostages during a mass shooting using the handgun that agents seized.”

Read more: WFLA