Credit: Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/LinkedIn
As the nation was still reeling from a massacre in Buffalo, New York, less than a week earlier, John Channels showed up to a Nebraska office building with an assault rifle holding blank cartridges and a group of actors smeared in fake blood.
Catholic Charities in Omaha, Nebraska, was set to cut the 27-year-old a $2,500 check for ambushing their building on May 19 and simulating a mass shooting that was as realistic as possible, his lawyer says.
There was one major issue, cops say: Only two people in the building knew of the active shooter drill. So, when Channels arrived firing blanks as actors covered in fake blood lay across the floor, the so-called drill quickly became a traumatizing horror show that ultimately ended with his arrest for terroristic threats.