SWAT teams converged on a Super 8 motel in Chico, CA Sunday after they found a 37-year-old man staying there was “preparing to commit a ‘Las Vegas style’ mass shooting with a specified deadline,” according to Chico Police.
The expression “‘Las Vegas style’ mass shooting” refers to the October 2017 shootings at the Route 91 Harvest music festival on the Las Vegas strip, where a gunman fired more than 1,000 bullets into a crowd, killing 60 people, and causing a bedlam that injured near 900 more. It stands as the deadliest individual mass shooting in U.S. history, and to this day, we still do not know the 64-year-old gunman’s motive.
A California man was arrested Sunday morning at a Super 8 motel after cops say they obtained evidence the suspect was planning a “‘Las Vegas style’” mass shooting with a specified deadline.” https://t.co/wOKVxvkDX0
— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) September 26, 2022
But the expression “‘Las Vegas style’ mass shooting” is back in the lexicon for harrowing reasons. KTVU reports that Chico police arrested 37-year-old Dallas Marsh for plotting such a shooting Sunday morning, at the Chico Super 8 motel seen above. Chico is about 80 miles north of Sacramento, and on the outskirts of the Tahoe National Forest.
It’s still unclear where Marsh was allegedly planning the shooting. But according to an Associated Press report on KPIX, March is accused of "criminal threats to kill specific individuals, specified law enforcement officers and was preparing to commit a 'Las Vegas style' mass shooting with a specified deadline," according to a statement from the Chico Police Department.
Obviously, threats to kill “specified law enforcement officers” is going to get the attention of police. But it sounds like the law enforcement interrogation went even worse than you’d think. According to the Los Angeles Times, “Authorities allege that Marsh battered an officer with a table while he was being interviewed and threatened to kill other officers and their families.”
The threats against officers will obviously bring charges, though we don’t know what all else Marsh will be charged with. Marsh is reportedly currently being held without bail at the Butte County Jail. The LA Times adds that “It is not clear how authorities were made aware of Marsh’s alleged plot and how long they knew about it before his arrest.”
Court records indicate that Marsh was previously charged for making criminal threats and waving a knife around in Chico in 2019 or 2020, and a "neighbor heard [Marsh] yelling about a public beheading." He pleaded no contest to making criminal threats and recklessly evading an officer, and it's possible he only recently got out of jail from that case.
Image: Super 8 by Wyndham Chico via Yelp
