NEW ORLEANS – A former law enforcement officer accused of planning to kill Black people in a mass shooting at a New Orleans festival was quietly released from custody over the summer after a grand jury found there was not enough evidence to charge him with a crime.
A Louisiana grand jury in June declined to indict Christopher Gillum on a state terrorism charge that could have carried up to a 15-year sentence, court records show.
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Gillum, who had been held without bond, was released shortly after the grand jury’s decision and is not facing charges in any other jurisdictions, according to his attorney, Dylan Utley. He declined to comment further.
Gillum's release has not previously been reported.
The 45-year-old ex-police officer, who is from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, had been arrested in Florida in April with hundreds of rounds of ammunition and a handgun while on his way to Louisiana to commit a mass shooting, according to the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office. The investigation had involved the FBI and authorities across Louisiana, North Carolina and Florida.
Authorities did not name the event Gillum was allegedly targeting, but his arrest came on the eve of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, which attracts hundreds of thousands of festivalgoers annually.
Gillum, who is white, had “expressed recent threats to harm ‘Black people’ ”, according to authorities. 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 U.S. 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.
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Brook is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.