It’s been a little more than a year since that sideshow Bob-looking freakshow killed 12 people at an Aurora screening of The Dark Knight Rises, and people seem to have largely forgotten about it in light of more recent mass shootings (a happy ending?). But it’s hard not to be reminded of it when a guy in Flint gets arrested at a theater while carrying a loaded gun, body armor, and a fake CIA badge. Yikes, as if Smurfs 2 wasn’t reason enough to stay out of theaters.
A mental exam has been ordered for a man arrested at a Michigan movie theater wearing body armor and carrying a gun and a phony CIA badge.
FBI spokesman Simon Shaykhet says police were called to the Trillium Theater in Grand Blanc Township near Flint on around 8:20 p.m. Tuesday after someone noticed the vest and gun.
Cassidy Delavergne was watching a movie when police approached him. According to investigators, Delavergne flashed a fake Central Intelligence Agency identification badge and told the officers that he was a federal agent.
God, could you imagine getting killed by a guy named “Cassidy?”
I wonder how many times that fake CIA badge has worked. It might be one of those moves so ballsy that no one questions it, because they can’t imagine the balls it would take for that kind of bluff. “FBI? Well I’m CIA, stand down.”
Suspicious of his story, police arrested Delavergne and found he was wearing body armor and carrying a 9 mm pistol with 34 rounds of ammunition.
Federal agents arrived and searched Delavergne’s car, where they found an additional 111 rounds of ammunition. Shaykhet declined to say whether agents believe Delavergne planned to use his handgun.
A court filing says Delavergne told an agent he displayed the phony ID to minimize concerns about his gun.
Reporter Andrew Keller said right now, Delavergne has only been charged with having a CIA identification card.
“Right now, the FBI is not releasing anything about possible motives, but did say Delavergne claims he was wearing the body armor and carrying the gun because he just got off work and did not want to leave them in his car. The FBI also said he claimed to have a concealed weapons permit,” he said. [CBSDetroit]
Well sure, I mean if he just got off work, that makes total sense that he’d be carrying a loaded gun and wearing body armor– wait, what? The fake CIA badge seems like the least of our worries. And so far, his plan to use it to distract from his guns seems to have worked swimmingly. Though he doesn’t sound like your usual, just-lost-his-job, down-on-his-luck loner about to go on a shooting spree. For one thing, having 145 9mm rounds is like being a millionaire in Flint. And body armor? Sounds like he was doing all right.