UCF student who idolized mass shooters online can buy guns, judge decides
A UCF student who wrote online comments idolizing mass shooters may purchase weapons, a judge ruled Monday in lifting a temporary ban.
Orlando police in early March used Florida’s new gun legislation, passed in the wake of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in South Florida, to temporarily ban Christian Nicholas Velasquez from owning any weapons or ammunition. City attorneys sought to persuade Circuit Judge Bob LeBlanc to extend the temporary ban a year.
“I don’t disagree with the issuing of the initial temporary injunction. I think that’s exactly what the statute provides for,” LeBlanc said. But the judge declined to extend the ban.
Velasquez, 21, is the first person against whom the Orlando Police Department has sought to obtain a “risk protection order,” a newly created type of civil injunction that allows law enforcement to seize firearms from people deemed by a court to be mentally ill or who present a violent threat to themselves or others. The extension also could have affected Velasquez’s ability to get certain jobs and could expose him to other criminal liabilities, his lawyer Kendra Parris said.
Parris said Velasquez was being punished for legally protected speech. She argued Velasquez had not done anything to suggest he would act on the comments. He had not purchased a weapon, and he does not have a criminal record, she said, adding that he would have voluntarily relinquished his gun rights had he been given the option.
The city’s attorney, Alexander Karden, said the intent of the legislation is to allow courts to order mental health treatment before a person commits a crime. Karden pointed to psychological evaluations that he said place Velasquez on step three of five steps of progression toward committing violence.
“He’s following the trajectory. … This statute is not designed for someone who’s already gone over the top. It’s designed to stop them before they get there,” Karden said.
City attorneys, who can appeal the decision, declined to comment after the hearing.
University of Central Florida Police Officer Jeffrey Panter said he started investigating Velasquez after getting reports from the school community about a user on the online social media platform Reddit called “TheRealUCFChris” who called Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz and Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock heroes.
Panter interviewed Velasquez, who answered a series of hypothetical questions about committing a mass shooting. Panter asked if his target would be UCF. Velasquez answered he would probably do it at the middle or high school where he was bullied. He also said it would take a tragic life event such as a breakup or firing from a good job to provoke him.
His lawyer argued against portions of the statement and quoted Velasquez in the nearly two-hour recorded interview, saying, “I can’t imagine myself ever doing that. It would take a lot to push me over the edge.”
Velasquez was taken to a mental health facility after the interview under Florida’s Baker Act, which allows people to be involuntarily detained and given emergency mental heath evaluations if they are believed to be a threat to themselves or others. The doctor who evaluated him deemed he was not a threat.
Panter, joined by an FBI special agent and a Orlando police detective, went to Velasquez’s home, where his father voluntarily gave them his own revolver and let them search his son’s room.
Velasquez, who is still enrolled in classes, was issued a trespass order from campus, and his conduct is being reviewed by the university, UCF Police Department spokeswoman Courtney Gilmartin said.
Parris said Velasquez got online and acted “like a jerk” on a forum that is “notoriously vulgar.” She again pointed to his interview with police, in which Velasquez said he regretted his comments, didn’t think before he typed and “wanted to look like a badass on Reddit.”
The elder Velasquez stood behind his son with his arms crossed and shook his head in response to parts of the city attorneys’ arguments. He testified on behalf of his son and said he was not concerned that his son would be violent. Velasquez’s family embraced him after the judge’s ruling.
The family will pursue civil action against Orlando police, Parris told the Orlando Sentinel.
“For a person with a history of bullying, I cannot tell you how horrifying this has been. He is afraid to leave his house,” Parris said.
