A Florida extremist who stockpiled a massive arsenal of guns and ammunition had chatted for months with school shooter Natalie Rupnow — sharing love notes and mutual plans to shoot up multiple locations, including churches and police departments, according to authorities.
Damien Allen, 22, was found with eight guns — including fully automatic assault rifles — along with over 12,000 rounds of ammunition and grenades and flashbangs at his family’s home in Loxahatchee, officials said at a press conference Wednesday.
“There is no doubt that [the investigators] have stopped a mass shooting,” Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said.
“This guy was ready to go, had all these weapons, had the propensity to do it — it was just a matter of what day was going to set him off.”
Allen had been in contact with Rupnow, 15, for months before she shot up a private Christian school in Wisconsin in December, killing two and wounding six others before taking her own life, the officials said.
“We go down together,” Allen told Rupnow in one TikTok exchange in June, six months before she carried out her evil plot, according to an affidavit obtained by WISN.
“I love you,” the school shooter told Allen, who allegedly replied, “I love you more.”
The disturbing exchanges were part of evidence that Allen “expressed support of radically and ethnically motivated violent extremism and threats of mass violence” — detailing at least seven targets, Capt. Randy Foley of the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office said.
Palm Beach police received a tip from the FBI that Allen might be planning a massive attack. The search executed on his family home allegedly found the weapons and ammo as well as a ballistic vest and helmet.
“Can you imagine the amount of damage he would’ve done with 12,000 rounds of ammunition and fully automatic ARs?” Bradshaw asked.
“Unquestionably, this is one of the best arrests I’ve seen in a long time that has prevented people from dying — because I guarantee you he was going to do that.”
Allen also had three uniforms that resembled sheriff’s deputies’ uniforms — with a badge and nametags — as well as a Ford Crown Victoria, commonly used by police officers, set up with a police-issued laptop and a two-way radio, officials said.
He also had FBI, Army and Marine uniforms, along with active-duty FBI and Army credentials, officials said.
“This is disturbing that somebody could get these types of items off the internet. It baffles me, to be honest,” Bradshaw said of the outfits the suspect wore in online videos.
Allen was arrested Tuesday and is charged with written or electronic threat of a mass shooting or terrorism act, using a two-way communication device to facilitate a felony and unlawful use of a badge or other indication of authority.
He is being held without bond at Palm Beach County’s Main Detention Center, according to jail records.
