Police: Heavily armed Ind. man arrested before Calif. gay pride event
INDIANAPOLIS — An Indiana man armed with assault rifles and explosive chemicals was arrested on his way to a gay pride event in the Los Angeles area Sunday, police confirmed.
James Wesley Howell, 20, was arrested when Santa Monica police discovered three assault rifles, high capacity magazines and ammunition in his car, according to a news release from the Santa Monica Police Department. Investigators also recovered a five-gallon bucket "with chemicals capable of forming an improvised explosive device," police said.
Authorities encountered Howell while responding to a call about "suspicious circumstances" in Santa Monica shortly before 5 a.m. PT. Police said Howell was reportedly knocking on a resident's door and window. Howell's vehicle was registered in Indiana.
According to initial reports from Santa Monica Police Chief Jacqueline Seabrooks, Howell told officers he wanted to harm the gay pride event in West Hollywood that was taking place about 7 miles away later Sunday.
But Seabrooks later called those comments an "inaccuracy," saying on Twitter that Howell only said that he was going to the event, not that he wanted to harm anyone.
Seabrooks also tweeted that there were no known connections between Howell's arrest and the mass shooting this weekend that killed 50 people at a gay nightclub in Florida.
According to court records, Howell most recently lived in Jeffersonville, which is part of the Louisville metro area. He was arrested in Clark County in October 2015 on a felony charge of pointing a firearm and a misdemeanor charge of intimidation.
Court records show Howell pleaded guilty in April to the intimidation charge. The felony firearm charge was dismissed. Howell was sentenced to serve a year of probation. According to court records, he was to "forfeit all weapons" for the entirety of his probation period.
Trey Furnish, who attended middle school and high school with Howell, told The Indianapolis Star that "he was the quiet one in the class."
"He didn't talk much throughout those years," Furnish said. "There were times, back in high school, where he would find himself in arguments and fights because he would cross the line with what he said to people."
Those fights, Furnish said, were not a daily occurrence, though, and Furnish told The Star that he couldn't really think of a situation in which Howell spoke about his opinions regarding the LGBT community.
"I did not really see this coming, man," Furnish said. "But then again, I did not hang with this kid, or know him personally."
Howell's arrest is still under investigation by the Santa Monica Police Department, which says it is collaborating with the FBI.
Contributing: Matthew Glowicki, The (Louisville) Courier-Journal, and The Associated Press. Follow Jill Disis and Michael Anthony Adams on Twitter: @jdisis and @MichaelAdams317