CHARGES HAVE BEEN filed against a 20-year-old man for terrorism offences, after he walked into a Walmart store in the US to test whether it would honour his right to bear arms.
Dmitriy Andreychenko sparked panic at the shop in Springfield, Missouri, on Thursday afternoon just a few days after 22 people were killed in an attack at the Walmart in El Paso, Texas.
He walked through the shop armed with a rifle that had a loaded magazine in it, with a loaded handgun at his right hip.
No shots were fired and Andreychenko was arrested after he was stopped by an armed off-duty firefighter at the store.
“Missouri protects the right of people to open carry a firearm, but that does not allow an individual to act in a reckless and criminal manner endangering other citizens,” Greene County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Patterson said.
Patterson compared the man’s actions to “falsely shouting fire in a theatre causing a panic.”
“I wanted to know if Walmart honoured the Second Amendment,” Andreychenko was reported to have said in the statement outlining the charges against him.
If convicted, the felony charge of making a terrorist threat in the second degree is punishable by up to four years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000, according to the prosecutor’s office.
Andreychenko said he bought the rifle and body armor because of three recent shootings and a stabbing, and said he wanted to protect himself.
His wife, Angelice Andreychenko, told investigators that she warned him it was not a good idea, adding that he was an immature boy.
His sister, Anastasia Andreychenko, said he had asked her if she would videotape him going into Walmart with a gun and she also told him it was a bad idea, according to the probable cause statement.
Walmart issued a statement yesterday praising authorities for stopping the incident from escalating. It said Andreychenko is no longer welcome in its stores.
“This was a reckless act designed to scare people, disrupt our business and it put our associates and customers at risk,” said spokeswoman LeMia Jenkins. “We applaud the quick actions of our associates to evacuate customers from our store, and we’re thankful no one was injured.”
Since January 2017, Missouri has not required a permit to openly or conceal carry a firearm for those 19 years or older. Roughly 30 states in the US allow the open carrying of handguns and rifles and shotguns in public without a permit.
With reporting from the Associated Press
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