Florida man arrested in Austin after allegedly threatening ‘mass casualty event’ at Tesla event
A 28-year-old Florida man was arrested in Austin the day before Tesla’s Cybertruck delivery event after allegedly planning to “shoot up Elon Musk and the plant,” according to an arrest affidavit.
The document states that the Senior Manager of Security Operations with Tesla filed a Suspicious Activity report regarding threatening messages that were sent on Instagram on Nov. 9.
Some of the messages read:
“I sure am crazy though”
“But yeah so at the Tesla event I’m planning an attach so up to you guys to stop me”
“I plan on killing people at that even ok November 30th and I would like you to do something about it so I don’t have to”
“I wanna die”
“I need to be stopped”
“If I’m saying I’m gonna kill people then you should take this seriously”
The senior manager followed up with the Travis County Sheriff’s Office on Tuesday, two days before the event. The sheriff’s office launched an investigation.
Investigators identified the Instagram user as Paul Ryan Overeem. Although he is from Florida, investigators pinged his cell phone on Wednesday and discovered that he was in Austin.
Read more: CBS Austin