A Michigan man has admitted to planning a mass shooting at a local political party headquarters and a nearby bar because he associates both with gay people, officials said Tuesday.
Mack Davis, 22, pled guilty to one count of hate crime for attempting to carry out the mass killings in Owosso, roughly 25 miles west of Flint. He faces a maximum term of life in prison, according to a Department of Justice news release.
“This kind of vile and heinous hate-fueled violence, intended to target innocent people based on their sexual orientation, runs contrary to our values as Americans,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke said in a statement included in the release. “Bias-motivated crimes targeting the LGBTQI+ community will not be tolerated. The Justice Department will continue using every tool at our disposal to protect communities from the scourge of hate-fueled violence by prosecuting those who carry out or attempt to carry out such crimes.”
Officials claimed Davis researched and wrote about dozens of mass murderers in diaries, on other materials in his home, and on social media between July of last year and June, when he was detained on an unrelated offense. Davis compiled a list of firearms he had and planned to obtain in order to carry out his own mass slaughter over the course of 11 months, according to officials. According to officials, by June, he had accumulated an arsenal consisting of two rifles, magazines, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, a crossbow and arrows, various bomb-making elements, smoke grenades, tactical gear, and several knives. Officials reported that he etched the anti-gay term “F——- Killer” on one of his blades.
Between April and June, Davis wrote on social media about opening fire on a local political party’s offices, which he stated, using an anti-gay epithet, were “filled with far-left liberal f—– scum,” and a neighboring club that Davis referred to as a “f—– bar,” according to the DOJ release. Officials did not say which political party the offices belong to or whether the adjoining bar is gay.
In June, Davis spray-painted the word “fag” on the car of one of his neighbors, whom officials said Davis knew was gay, and destroyed another vehicle. Days later, Davis test-fired one of his firearms, spraying about 60 shots at many of his neighbors’ houses, including one of the automobiles he had previously destroyed, according to officials.
Following the shooting, police apprehended him, and he has been in detention since June. The announcement states that he will face jail at an undisclosed later date for organizing the foiled assault.
“Davis’ plans were chilling. He intended to commit mass shootings at two locations — destroying countless lives and devastating our community — all because of his fanatical hatred for gay people,” Dawn N. Ison, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, said in a statement. “I applaud the work of law enforcement in disrupting this awful plot and arresting Davis before he could carry out his planned attacks.”
When asked to comment on the allegations and eventual plea, Davis’ attorney, Bryan Sherer, described his client as “just twenty-two years old and vulnerable.”
“Mr. Davis did not intentionally harm anyone despite having multiple opportunities to do so. The information that was found by the police was found in Mr. Davis’ private journal inside his bedroom. Mr. Davis was brought to the attention of police only after purposefully shooting into multiple unoccupied vehicles,” Sherer said in an email. “He does not have a history of violent behavior toward others prior to being charged in this case with an attempted hate crime. No one, including the United States Government, could say unequivocally that Mack Davis would have ever shot at or killed anyone in the LGBTQIA+ community.”
Over the last decade, there have been at least two high-profile mass shootings at LGBT pubs.
In 2016, a shooter opened fire on Pulse Nightclub, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, killing 49 people and injuring many more. That same day, police shot and killed the 29-year-old male shooter on the scene of the incident.
In 2020, Club Q, a nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado, was similarly assaulted, killing five people and injuring 17. The 24-year-old shooter pleaded guilty last year and received a life sentence. Last month, two lawsuits asserted that authorities could have prevented the Colorado shooting if they had adhered to Colorado’s red flag statute.