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Travis Reinking

Nashville-area police arrest suspect in Waffle House shooting


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By —— Bio and Archives April 23, 2018

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Nashville-area police arrest suspect in Waffle House shooting, Travis Reinking They got him. A report moved just a few minutes ago from the New York Times that said he was caught in a wooded area. This was a coordinated effort by several area law enforcement agencies, so kudos to all of them:
BREAKING: Travis Reinking apprehended moments ago in a wooded area near Old Hickory Blvd & Hobson Pk. About 160 law enforcement officials had been involved in the search for the suspect, Travis Reinking, 29, who officials said used an AR-15 rifle to carry out a rampage at a restaurant southeast of downtown on Sunday morning. In addition to the four people who were killed — Akilah Dasilva, 23; DeEbony Groves, 21; Joe R. Perez, 20; and Taurean C. Sanderlin, 29 — four people were wounded. The authorities said there would have been greater bloodshed had a 29-year-old customer, James Shaw Jr., not wrested the rifle away from Mr. Reinking while he was reloading. Mr. Reinking fled the restaurant after the attack, the police said, naked except for a green jacket. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation had added Mr. Reinking to its Top Ten Most Wanted list, describing him as a 6-foot-4 white male with brown hair and brown eyes who weighs 180 pounds.
Mr. Reinking has had other encounters with law enforcement, including an arrest near the White House last July when he crossed a security barrier in pursuit of a meeting with President Trump. Police reports show family members expressed concern for his welfare after he exhibited delusional behavior for an extended time, including expressing a belief that the entertainer Taylor Swift was stalking him and hacking his phone and Netflix account. And after his arrest for the White House episode, Mr. Reinking, who lived in Morton, Ill., was forced to surrender three rifles and a handgun to officials in August, just months before he moved to Nashville. After the rampage in Nashville on Sunday, officials could not fully explain how Mr. Reinking regained possession of his weapons. The Tazewell County Sheriff’s Office in Illinois gave the weapons he owned — including the AR-15 he took to the Waffle House on Sunday — to his father, Jeffrey Reinking.
Clearly, James Shaw Jr. deserves all the accolades he’s getting for wrestling the gun away from Reinking. He risked his life to do it too. Maybe Shaw would have been at less risk if he’d also been armed. More guns is the answer. Anyway, this is certainly a cautionary tale for those who think programs like the “gun buyback” are any sort of answer to gun violence. Here’s a case in which a guy had supposedly “surrendered his weapons,” yet now police can’t explain how he managed to once again be in possession of a gun. That’s because there’s no way for law enforcement to constantly track the whereabouts of every gun that’s floating around out there. Limiting access to guns will never be the answer to this problem because a) it denies law-abiding citizens their right to carry to protect themselves; b) it’s practically impossible; and c) is fosters a false sense of security that you’ve solved the problem when you haven’t really done anything. At least the problem of Travis Reinking is solved for now, although it’s too late for his four victims.



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Dan Calabrese’s column is distributed by HermanCain.com, which can be found at HermanCain

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