Texas police arrested a 28-year-old man from Florida on Wednesday for allegedly traveling over a thousand miles with the intention of carrying out a mass shooting at a Tesla Cybertruck event in Austin this week.
Paul Ryan Overeem, residing in Orlando, faces charges of making a terroristic threat, a third-degree felony in Texas that could lead to a prison sentence of up to 20 years if convicted, according to records.
An arrest affidavit, as reported by the Austin American-Statesman, detailed how law enforcement foiled Overeem’s alleged plan.
The sequence of events unfolded on November 10 when Tesla officials received a tip that a man, later identified as Overeem, discussed plans for a mass shooting in an Instagram group chat.
The affidavit revealed that authorities obtained a subpoena for Instagram, revealing that the account “ufotnoitalumis” belonged to Overeem.
On Wednesday, law enforcement spotted Overeem’s vehicle with Florida plates on a traffic camera at two stop lights in Austin.
Subsequently, they pulled him over in Travis County, where Austin is situated, after his phone pinged just miles away from a Cybertruck event attended by Elon Musk at Tesla’s headquarters.
While Musk hasn’t commented on the threat, the affidavit did not specifically identify him as the target, according to the American-Statesman.
Overeem’s Instagram messages, riddled with spelling mistakes, expressed his intention to carry out a shooting at the Tesla event and his desire for self-harm.
He allegedly wrote, “But yeah so at teh (sic) Tesla event I’m planning to attach (sic) so up to you guys to stop me.”
The message continued, “I plan on killing people at that even (sic) ok (sic) November 30th and I would like you do something about it so I don’t have to…I wanna die.”
The NBC News report stated that the Travis County Sheriff’s Office chose not to disclose whether Overeem had any weapons at the time of his arrest.
According to the affidavit, Overeem had no connections to Austin, and the individuals in his Instagram group chat were not identified.
Overeem is currently in custody with a bail set at $300,000, as indicated by jail records from Wednesday. He has been assigned a public defender and is set to have a hearing on December 11th.
