History of red flags didn't keep guns out of hands of Waffle House shooting suspect

Anita Wadhwani | The Tennessean

Show Caption Hide Caption Waffle House shooting: Listen to the 911 call that lead to Reinking's arrest Police released the 911 call that led to Travis Reinking's arrest 34 hours after authorities say he killed four people in a shooting at an Antioch Waffle House.

NASHVILLE — The red flags have been there for years.

In 2016, Illinois police took Waffle House shooting suspect Travis Reinking into protective custody after he was found in a CVS parking lot "delusional."

Reinking believed that Taylor Swift, his family and police were involved in hacking into his phone and stalking him, according to a police report. Family members said he had threatened to kill himself and told police he "owns and had access to many firearms at his residence."

Reinking, who was 27 at the time, was taken to a local hospital for a mental health evaluation. It's unknown what the evaluation found or when he was released.

A year later, Illinois police intervened again. Reinking had threatened an employee of his father's crane company while holding an AR-15 rifle and wearing a pink dress.

Later the same day, he drove to a public pool, took off the pink dress and jumped in, exposing himself and yelling at those present.

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In a June 2017 report about that incident, police said: "Travis has some mental problems." They searched him for weapons but found none.

Police contacted Jeff Reinking, Travis' father, who said he had taken three rifles and a hand gun away from his son and locked them up — but had recently returned them.

One month later, in July 2017, U.S. Secret Service arrested Reinking for being in a "restricted area" near the White House. Reinking said he wanted to meet with the president.

Then in early August 2017, an Illinois police officer encountered Reinking again. Reinking reported that people were tapping into his phone and computer and that "unknown people outside his residence (were) barking like dogs."

The officer filed a report, noting "this is an informational report only. No further action is being taken."

Later that month, in connection to the Secret Service arrest, his Illinois firearms authorization was revoked. Local Illinois authorities seized four weapons and placed them with Jeff Reinking. His father later admitted giving the weapons back to his son, but it is unclear when that happened.

Eight months later, Reinking, 29, made national headlines when he allegedly killed four people and injured several others in a Nashville Waffle House, spurring a 34-hour manhunt until police apprehended him Monday. Reinking has been charged with four counts of criminal homicide. He remains jailed without bond.

A co-owner of a crane company where Reinking worked said she had urged federal officials to keep him in custody after he was arrested at the White House last year.

Darlene Sustrich said they got a call from the FBI after he allegedly tried to jump the White House fence last July.

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“We told them, ‘Hang onto him if you can. Help him if you can,’ ” Sustrich said.

Federal officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Reinking's brushes with the law reveal a pattern of mental instability that raised red flags among local and federal officials — but they also reveal the limits of law enforcement in removing guns from people whose mental illnesses could pose a risk of danger to the public, experts said.

"If a police officer is concerned somebody shouldn't have a gun, there's very little an officer can do," said Avery Gardiner, co-president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, which advocates for stricter gun regulations.

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There also is little that can prevent gun buyers with mental illness from purchasing weapons.

Since 1968, a federal law has barred the possession or acquisition of firearms by anyone who “has been adjudicated as a mental defective or has been committed to any mental institution."

From 1998 to 2014, the FBI rejected 16,669 potential gun buyers because a background check found a mental health adjudication, about 1.4% of the roughly 1.2 million background checks that resulted in a denial.

The National Rifle Association has urged policymakers to focus on the nation's mental health system without limiting gun rights. They also have stressed that there are protections in place.

"The NRA will support any reasonable step to fix America’s broken mental health system without intruding on the constitutional rights of Americans," according to a statement posted on the group's website.

Mental health professionals support broadening access to mental health care but stress that mental illnesses are not the only factor behind mass shootings.

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"I think we can see in this case a lot of times mental illness is just one of a number of complicated factors that leads someone to do something completely unexplainable," said Dr. Jonathan Metzl, director of the Center for Medicine, Health and Society at Vanderbilt University.

Reinking's mental instability, his brushes with the law, access to family guns and differing gun laws in different states that may have allowed him to legally own guns are all contributing factors, Metzl said.

Since the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting, mental health has moved to the forefront of the debate over gun control and gun rights.

The gunman in that case was able to pass a background check despite having been treated at a Virginia hospital as a potential danger to himself or others.

More recently, the debate emerged again after the Parkland, Fla., school shooting, which claimed the lives of 14 students and three school officials Feb. 14.

School officials and a sheriff's deputy had sought to forcibly commit Nikolas Cruz for a mental evaluation a year before the deadly rampage, but their recommendation was never acted upon. Cruz was able to obtain a gun legally.

In Tennessee, officials are limited in their authority to remove weapons from individuals — even those who appear to pose a danger.

"Until someone commits a crime, there is no authority in the state of Tennessee to take someone's gun," said Judge Melissa Blackburn, a General Sessions Court judge who also presides over Nashville's Mental Health and Veterans Court.

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After the Parkland shooting, Blackburn and other judges worked with the city's Legal Department to analyze current laws related to gun ownership and mental illness, she said .

The law says that people who have been determined to be mentally defective may be reported to the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security or the FBI, not to local sheriffs or police.

There is no mechanism that allows judges to take guns from people whom mental health professionals suspect are a danger but have not been convicted of a crime, Blackburn said.

A handful of states have enacted so-called "red flag" laws that typically allow law enforcement or family members to petition a court to temporarily remove guns from an individual who has displayed mental instability or made threats of violence.

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At a news conference Tuesday, Davidson County Sheriff Daron Hall called Sunday's mass shooting "evidence that we have too many guns and too many mentally ill people.

"When you put those two things together in our community, the potential for things like this is going to exist," Hall said. "My hope is we can find a way to reach people who are today suffering from mental illness that we can help, instead of one of these days having another one of these types of cases."

Contributing: The Associated Press. Follow Anita Wadhwani on Twitter: @AnitaWadhwani