News released a few hours ago has disclosed that a southwest Missouri man has admitted to planning to shoot up a "Twilight" showing and a Walmart store for this week. He has been in trouble with the law before as he was detained in 2009 after threatening a store clerk, police said Saturday.
Bolivar Police Chief Steve Hamilton released information that Blaec Lammers of twenty years of age from Bolivar was following a female clerk around a Walmart store in 2009. He also began to threaten her. Although he was not charged he was committed for 96 hours for a mental health examination. Lammers, whose own mother turned him in Thursday, face three felony charges in the alleged shooting plot.
According to law in Missouri, hospitals, law enforcement officials and private citizens have the right to hold a person against their will for a maximum of 96 hours should he or she appear to be a threat to themselves or others.
"It looks like everything was done appropriately at that time," Hamilton said. "The average person will look at it and say 'Why was he not charged criminally?' And the reality is the law only allows so much when a person is having some mental issues."
Lammers was thus charged on Friday with first-degree assault, making a terroristic threat and armed criminal action. He is jailed in Polk County on $500,000 bond. The aforementioned charges are related to the incidents at Walmart.
It was Lammers’ own mother who contact authorities of his suspicious behavior. She disclosed to police that she was worried that her son "may have intentions of shooting people" during the opening weekend for the final film in the popular vampire series, police recorded in the probable cause statement.
Additionally, her statements of worry were substantiated by the fact that her son had recently bought weapons- two assault rifles and hundreds of bullets - that were comparable to those used by a gunman who opened fire inside a theater in Aurora, Colo., during the latest Batman movie in July. The attack was fatal, killing 12 people.
Police wrote in the probable cause statement that Lammers was "off of his medication."
It was said that Lammers was under physician’s care. However the details of his mental were never disclosed.
Lammers was questioned Thursday afternoon and told authorities he bought tickets to a Sunday "Twilight" screening in Bolivar and planned to shoot people inside. The town of approximately 10,000 people is an estimated 130 miles southeast of Kansas City.
According to the probable cause statement, Lammers also said he planned to "just start shooting people at random" at a Walmart store less than a mile away. He said he'd purchased two assault rifles and 400 rounds of ammunition, and if he ran out of bullets, he would "just break the glass where the ammunition is being stored and get some more and keep shooting until police arrived," investigators wrote.
Police supposed Lammers bought one firearm Monday and another Tuesday, then headed to Aldrich to practice because he "had never shot a gun before and wanted to make sure he knew how they shot and how they functioned."
Hamilton stated it's "very difficult to say what (Lammers) would have done."
"I think he would have been adaptive," Hamilton said. "If one target wasn't available, I think he would have changed to something else."
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