A Missouri man was charged Friday with plotting to shoot a packed movie theater during the screening of the new hit "Twilight" movie.
Blaec Lammers, 20, of Bolivar, is facing multiple charges including first-degree assault, making a terroristic threat and armed criminal action, Fox News reported via the Associated Press; Lammers is being held in Polk County jail on $500,000 bond.
Police officers in Bolivar, Mo., were tipped off to Lammers's plot after his mother called them to say that she feared her son had purchased weapons similar to those used by James Holmes, the man who killed 13 people and wounded nearly 60 others in an Aurora, Colo., movie theater shooting on July 20.
In fact, police say that Lammers said "he had a lot in common with the people that have been involved in those shootings."
Police apprehended Lammers later, and interviewed him, during which he admitted to purchasing two assault rifles "for hunting," then said he had bought two tickets to a Sunday showing of the highly-anticipated hit movie "Breaking Dawn-Part Two, " starring Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson. Lammers got ahold of the guns--along with 400 rounds of ammunition--with the intent to shoot people while at the movie, according to Rolling Stones magazine.
"Thankfully we had a responsible family member or we might have had a different outcome," Bolivar Police Chief Steve Hamilton told The Associated Press. According to the police chief, Lammers is under physician care for mental illness, and court documents stated he was "off of his medication."
A statement made by police also referred to a 2009 incident in which Lammers, who currently lives alone, confessed he wanted to stab Walmart employee to death.
Ashley Miller, who says she has known Lammers for about a year, told the Associated Press in a phone interview that he was "one of the sweetest guys I had ever met" but "very emotional," noting he would periodically stop talking to her.
"He was never actually happy," she said. "I think he had depression or something."
Lammers' first court appearance is expected to happen next week, likely on Wednesday, Polk County prosecutors say.
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