A former law enforcement officer accused of plotting a mass shooting targeting Black people at a New Orleans festival was released from custody earlier this summer, after a grand jury determined prosecutors did not have enough evidence to bring criminal charges.
Court records show that in June, a Louisiana grand jury declined to indict Christopher Gillum on a state terrorism charge, an allegation that could have carried a sentence of up to 15 years in prison.
Gillum, who had been jailed without bond, was freed soon after the grand jury’s decision. His attorney, Dylan Utley, said Gillum is not currently facing charges in any other jurisdiction, but declined to comment further.
His release had not been publicly reported before now.
Gillum, 45, a former police officer from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, was arrested in Florida in April while allegedly traveling to Louisiana to carry out a mass shooting, according to the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office. Authorities said he had a handgun and hundreds of rounds of ammunition with him at the time.
The case drew the involvement of the FBI as well as law enforcement agencies in Louisiana, North Carolina and Florida.
Officials did not identify the specific event Gillum was accused of targeting. His arrest, however, came just before the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, a major annual event that draws hundreds of thousands of attendees.
Authorities said Gillum, who is white, had “expressed recent threats to harm ‘black people’ ”.
His family had reported him missing in North Carolina and said he had a history of self-harm.
Lester Duhe, a spokesperson for Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, said in a statement that Gillum’s family had taken him “to a treatment facility out of the state” and that he is not facing additional criminal charges.
Duhe said there were “several jurisdictional issues” that complicated the case after Gillum was extradited to Louisiana following his arrest.
“The threat relayed to a family member actually occurred in North Carolina,” Duhe said. “The defendant never entered the State of Louisiana until after his arrest.”
Gillum had been planning to travel to the Florida Keys “during the same period he would have been suspected to travel to Louisiana,” Duhe added.
Gillum was charged under a Louisiana statute for the crime of “terrorizing,” which requires that “a crime of violence is imminent or in progress or that a circumstance dangerous to human life exists or is about to exist.”
Jonathan Guidry, the foreperson for the grand jury, declined to comment on the decision to not indict Gillum.
Katherine Schweit, a former Chicago prosecutor and FBI executive who ran the agency’s active shooter program, said that thwarted acts of mass violence do not always lead to indictments, but prosecutors often seek an array of criminal charges when possible.
“It’s very difficult to convince a jury, or to convince a grand jury, that something might have happened,” Schweit told The Associated Press.
Law enforcement authorities in North Carolina, where Louisiana court records list Gillum as residing, told the AP that they were not aware he had been released from custody.
“If we’ve got an individual that was accused of such an action, we would want to know if in fact he did return to Alamance County,” said Byron Tucker, a spokesperson for the Alamance County Sheriff’s Office in North Carolina.
Nazneen Ahmed, a spokesperson for North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson, said there are no plans for the state to pursue charges against Gillum.
The office of the Florida Attorney General did not respond to a request for comment about whether Gillum may face additional criminal charges in its jurisdiction.
The US Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of Louisiana also did not return messages seeking comment.
In a statement, the FBI New Orleans office said the decision whether to charge Gillum rested with prosecutors.
The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival declined to comment.
